Mental health - India's need of hour - Help us now

Challenge

As India is becoming rapidly industrialised and urbanised, the psychological distress and resulting illnesses are rising exponentially. It is now reflected in several areas - for example high suicide rates in India, increased stress in students, and, increasing alcohol and drug misuse. There is lack of awareness and stigma. Conditions like Alcohol misuse and Dementia have been posing challenges to individual families. Comprehensive treatment for mental disorders not accessible to poor patients

Solution

Currently mental healthcare is not accessible to everyone in need due to high costs in private care. We increase the mental healthcare access to people with lower socio-economic status via non-profit model. Our model is person-centered. Our comprehensive approach considers the impact the illness on the patient and his or her family. We use psychological therapies (talking treatments), medication, family counselling, arts and other skills to get the people back into their job or role in life.

Long-Term Impact

We carry out preventive work by raising awareness of mental disorders in primary and secondary schools, promoting healthy and stress-free living. We want to develop psychological methods, mental health nursing and mental health social work, raise mental health awareness & minimise stigma. Currently most psychiatric practice is mainly a medical model. We are hoping that success with this project will encourage other practitioners to change their current practice to bio-psycho-social model.

Additional Documentation

This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).

Resources

• http:/​/​www.mgicmh.org
• www.mgicmh.org