On the eve of World Mental Health Day at a discussion on ‘Depression: A Global Crisis’, experts said that psychiatry must be included in the MBBS syllabus. The event was organized at the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute by the Karnataka State Mental Health Association.
‘We need at least 1 lakh psychiatrists in India. The government must take steps to include psychiatry as a subject in the MBBS syllabus; at least one semester would be enough. If depression is treated with professional care, patients will not hesitate to come forward to seek treatment,’ Justice N Kumar of the Karnataka High Court said.
‘We require trained professionals to help cure mental illness. For this, we need to integrate mental healthcare into public healthcare. We need to create trained professionals, who can handle mental healthcare at Primary Health Centers as depression is highly prevalent in rural areas. MBBS doctors, counsellors, nurses, etc can be trained. Medical colleges must design special courses for mental health treatment,’ said Madam Goal, principal secretary, department of health and family welfare and chairman, Karnataka State Mental Health Authority. Karnataka has just two government institutes – Nimhans and Dharwad Mental Institute — to treat mental illness. The government must set up more institutes to treat mental illness, pointed Dr BN Magadha, professor, department of psychiatry.