Mental health policy

it explains the national mental health policy and national health policy...

1. UNIT:-1 JASLEEN KAUR MSC(N) NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH POLICY VIS A VIS NATIONAL HEALTH POLICY

2. NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH POLICY According to WHO, Mental health policies describe the values, objectives & strategies of the government to reduce the mental health burden & to improve mental health. They define a vision for the future that helps to establish a blueprint for the prevention & treatment of mental illness, the rehabilitation of people with mental disorders, and the promotion of mental health in the community.

3. Policies specify the standards that need to be applied across all programs & services, linking them all with a common vision, objectives & purpose. Without overall co-ordination, programs & services are likely to be ineffective & fragmented. The first draft of national mental health policy was prepared in late 2001 & came into existence in 2003. The NMHP will provide the necessary conceptual framework for achieving goals.

4. The NMHP is being energetically implemented, with adequate budgetary support in the 10 th five year plan,

5. POLICY OBJECTIVES The district mental health program (DMHP) is redesigned around a nodal institution,where most instances will be the zonal medical college. School mental health programs & dementia care services may be gradually integrated with DMHP.

6. Strengthening the medical college psychiatry departments with a view to develop psychiatric manpower, improve psychiatric treatment facilities at secondary level & to promote the development of general psychiatric hospitals in order to reduce & eventually to eliminate, to a large extent the need for big mental hospitals with all their attendants infirmities.

7. Streamlining (to shape something) & modernization of mental hospitals to transform them from the present, mainly custodial mode to tertiary care centers to excellence with a dynamic social orientation for providing leadership to research & development (R & D) in the field of community mental health.

8. Strengthening of central & state mental health authorities in order that they may effectively fulfil their role of monitoring ongoing mental health programs, determining priorities at the central/state level & promoting intersectoral collaboration & linkages with national programs.

9. Research & training aimed at building up an extensive database of epidemiological information relating to mental disorders & their course/outcome, development of better & most cost effective intervention methods, promotion of intersectoral research & providing the necessary inputs/conceptual framework for health & policy planning.

10. Focused information education & communication (IEC) activities with the active collaboration of professional agencies such as the Indian institute of Mass communication & directed towards enhancing public awareness & eradicating the stigma/discrimination related to mental illness, will form an important component of this policy objective..

11. PRIORTIZED GOALS TENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (2002-2007) 1.District mental health program will be extended to one district attached to each of the 100 medical colleges in the country, thereby covering 100 districts in the first phase,& there after expanding to 100 districts across the country.

12. TENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (2002-2007) 2 . Strengthening of medical colleges with allocation of Rs.50 lakhs each to medical colleges, for upgrading departments of psychiatry. 3.Streamlining & modernization of mental hospitals with aims of reduction in chronicity through intensive therapeutic intervention using non-conventional anti-psychotic medication, promoting care of chronically mentally ill patients in the community using outreach maintenance modalities.

13. TENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (2002-2007) 4. IEC (Information, education, communication) training & research by sponsoring relevant community based research projects & building up an extensive data base which will form basis for development of models & policy planning.

14. ELEVENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (2002-2007) The DMHP will be extended to another lot of 200 districts covered at the end of 10 th plan. Qualitative as well as quantitative improvement will be introduced in the areas of research, training and IEC,with more focused attention on epidemiological catchment area surveys on a larger scale.

15. ELEVENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (2012-2017) The DMHP will be extended to remaining previous plans will be consolidated, further upgradation of the psychiatric departments in medical colleges will be undertaken & 20 mental hospitals will be reconstructed. IEC activities will be augmented to cover all sections of the population across the whole country.

16. SPECIAL ISSUES Senior citizens suffering from severely disabling diseases such as alzheimer’s disease,& other types of dementia, Parkinson's disease, depression of late onset & other psychogeriatric disorders.

17. Victims of child sexual abuse, marital/domestic violence, dowry related ill treatment, rape & incest. Children & adolescents affected by problems of maladjustments or other scholastic problems, depression/psychosis of early onset, attention deficit hyper activity from failure in examination or other environmental stressors.

18. Victims of poverty, destitution & abandonment, such as women thrown out of the marital home or old & infirm parents left to friend for themselves. Victims of natural or man-made disasters such as cyclones,earthquakes,famines,war,terrorism,communal/ethnic strike,with specail attention to the specific needs of children orphaned by such disasters.

19. NATIONAL HEALTH POLICY NHP was formulated in 1983 & revised in 2002.

20. OBJECTIVES The main objective of NHP-2002 is to achieve an acceptable standard of good health amongst the general population in the country. The approach would be to increase access to the decentralized public health system by establishing new infrastructure in deficient areas & by upgrading the infrastructure in the existing institutions.

21. SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS WITH REGARD TO MENTAL HEALTH Upgrading infrastructure of institutions at central government expense so as to secure the human rights of this vulnerable segment of society. Envisages (imagine) a network of decentralized mental health services for ameliorating the more common categories of disorders.

22. SPECIFIC DISCUSSSION REGARDING MENTAL HEALTH Mental health disorders are actually much more prevalent than is apparent on the surface. While such disorders do not contribute significantly to mortality, they have serious bearing on the quality of life of the affected persons & their families.

23. Sometimes, based on religious faith, mental disorders are treated as spiritual affliction. This had led to the establishment of unlicensed mental institutions as an adjunct to religious institutions where reliance is placed on faith cure. Serious conditions of mental disorder require hospitalization & treatment under trained supervision.

24. Mental health institutions was woefully deficient in physical infrastructure & trained manpower. NHP-2002 will address itself to these deficiencies in the public health sector.

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