Is government missing mental health alarm?

BHUBANESWAR: Despite steep rise in cases of mental ailment with almost tenfold rise in both indoor and outdoor patients at Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP) and Ranchi Institute of Neuropsychiatry and allied sciences (RINPAS) over 2.68 lakh patients visiting these facilities in the year 2015-16 were handled by meagre 99 (approx.) mental health care experts.WHO figures point to the acute crisis according to which there 0.3 mental health expert for a population of every one lakh patients in India.
Ranchi has been synonymous with mental health care as the British founded first Lunatic Asylum in Munghyr in erstwhile Bihar in 1795 which was finally shifted to Kanke in Ranchi in 1924 as Indian Mental Hospital (IMH) which was rechristened Ranchi Mansik Arogyashala (RMA) after independence and later as RINPAS after intervention of the apex court in course of hearing a PIL filed by one Rakesh Chandra Narayan. Under the landmark judgment of September 8, 1994 the apex court had directed Bihar government to convert RMA into an autonomous body and continues to monitor the functioning, National Human Rights Commission being a regular (annual) visiting body to report to the Supreme Court about the status.
Huge inflow of patients which reached 1.23 lakh at Rinpas and its outreach camps in the previous year. Despite monitoring by the apex court and NHRC intervention except for certain patient facilities nothing has improved on part of faculty and strength of mental health care personnel.
As of date the premiere mental health facility that started with 1620 beds in 1924 has reduced its intake to 700 beds. There’s no permanent director and headed by incharges for more than a decade. The hospital has two teaching faculty and four regular psychiatrists whereas seven senior residents on contract render their services.
One of the senior residents Dr Siddhartha Sinha said that recently under specialist appointment drive three of the senior residents and two students of Rinpas were appointed for government job posted with different district hospitals. “Though the students joined, three senior residents refused to go to their respective places of appointment because Rinpas would be in shambles then,” he said adding that still the tenure of all seven senior residents would come to an end by November 2016 in the wake of expiry of their contract.
The MD and DPM course in Department of Psychiatry have one seat each which started in the year 2007. The seats are permitted by the Medical council of India and is yet to be recognised because of the lack of faculty members.
While CIP churns out 27 Postgraduate students annually Rinpas produces only two while the option of teaching in psychiatry is yet to start in any of the three medical colleges which includes RIMS, MGM Jamshedpur and PMCH Dhanbad.
Commissioner south Chotangpur division is the ex-officiao chairman of Rinpas management committee and presently headed by Dr Pradeep Kumar. He was not available for comments whereas director in charge at Rinpas Subhas Soren passed the buck to government saying that it all depends on the health department to take a final call about regular appointments.