Mental Health

Subject: Welfare schemes/Policies

Context:

COVID pandemic has increased mental illness through uncertainties it caused to people’s lives and has thrown light on India’s mental healthcare.

Concept:

• Mental health problems were already a major contributor to the burden of illness in India before the pandemic, with a third of all female and a quarter of all male suicide deaths in the world occurring in this country
• Poor awareness about symptoms of mental illness, myths & stigma related to it, lack of knowledge on the treatment availability & potential benefits of seeking treatment are important causes for the high treatment gap

National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) in 1982

• To ensure the availability and accessibility of minimum mental healthcare for all in the foreseeable future, particularly to the most vulnerable and underprivileged sections of the population;
• To encourage the application of mental health knowledge in general healthcare and in social development; and
• To promote community participation in the mental health service development and to stimulate efforts towards self-help in the community.

Mental Healthcare Act, 2017:

The Act seeks to ensure rights of the person with mental illness to receive care and to live a life with dignity. The key features of the Act are:

• Rights of Persons with Mental Illness: Right to Access to Healthcare, Right to live with dignity, Right to Confidentialit
• The Act empowers person with mental illness to make an advance directive that states how he/she wants to be treated for the illness and who his/her nominated representative shall be.
• The Act mandates the government to set up Central Mental Health Authority at national-level and State Mental Health Authority in every State.
• A mentally ill person shall not be subjected to electro-convulsive therapy without the use of muscle relaxants and anaesthesia. Further, electroconvulsive therapy cannot be used on minors
• Decriminalization of Suicide