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| Awareness helping erase the taboo of mental illness in Valley | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
SRINAGAR, Sept 25: The stigma attached with mental illness in the valley is slowly diminishing with an increase in awareness among the people who are gradually recognizing psychiatric disorder as a disease that needs proper care and treatment.
Doctors say that more and more people are visiting the psychiatric hospital in Srinagar.
"Earlier, social stigma associated with the disease held back patients to visit psychiatric hospital, but now large numbers of people are approaching us for medical treatment," says Dr Arshad Hussein, a psychiatrist at the SMHS Hospital in Srinagar. "Mental disorder remains the most pressing problem in Kashmir. Hussein credits the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the change.
"We cannot deny that some worthwhile steps are being taken by the non government and government organizations to do away with the menace(stigma).Here in SMHS we have been examining psychiatric patients in OPD for the last two years. Government has planned to establish full fledged General Hospital Psychiatric units in SMHS and the model will be followed in all other hospitals, "he adds
Arshad says the initiative will serve dual purpose with people having easy access to mental health care and at the same time it can play a key role in eliminating stigma attached to the disease.
Owing to its somatic effects, mental illness is often perceived as a physical ailment. By the time patients reach a psychiatrist, they have already been experimented upon by neurologists and gastroenterologists, says Arshad
However, things are slowly changing due to awareness among people. According to experts, NGOs have played a significant role in generating awareness among the people, which they believe is utmost important.
International aid agency Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) active in Kashmir since 2000, says people in valley were suffering from mental disorders and yet unaware of the stress and depression they were going through.
In this back drop, the organization started working at the grass roots to minimize stress related psychosocial problems among people in Kashmir.
Experts opine that earlier there was huge lacuna of community health centres in different districts making it difficult for people residing in far flung areas to visit the only hospital in Srinagar. |
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