by Mayukh Goswami

Mangaldai : Even after inact of the ‘Mental Health Care Act- 2017’ more than three years back , apathy of the policy makers and the government towards mentally ill patients of the State still continues as the district hospital here is yet to have a separate indoor s. If a mentally ill patient is in need of indoor treatment and care in Darrang district , the Psychiatric department of the Mangaldai Civil Hospital , the only hope for such patients in the district will be to adjust beds in the indoor medicine ward of the hospital . “ We admit and treat mentally ill patients in our hospital for which few beds in the medicine indoor ward are kept reserved .

We face problems for not having a separate indoor ward as general patients in the ward sometimes raise objections .”, said Dr Munindra Medhi , in charge medical officer of the Psychiatric department of the district hospital while talking to ANN . “ There is in need of a separate indoor set up for the Psychiatric patients and we are making necessary correspondence with the higher authority for its early arrangement and we are hopeful that the authorities will seriously look into it .” , Dr Medhi added. The Psychiatric department of the hospital presently has recorded ten outdoor patients daily on an average against the overall five hundred outdoor patients recorded in the hospital . “ Due to the prevailing social stigma , the parents and guardians of a mentally ill patient try to cover it up and hesitate to bring them to the Psychiatrist . Earlier such local patients were taken to Regional Institute of Mental Health Tezpur , but following awareness programmes at different levels , things have slightly changed and patients have started coming to us . Daily on an average , we are registering ten outdoor patients where as the maximum no of patients recorded stand at twenty .”, stated Dr Medhi . Apart from Dr Medhi , Dr Prasanta Kalita is the only other Psychiatrist in the district and he has been engaged mostly in the medicine outdoor department due to the shortage of doctors against the rush of patients .

There is a post of Community Nurse in the department under NHM , however the post is stated to remain vacant for the last two years after the staff had joined regular service . The service of the department is also assisted by staff of the District Mental Health Programme under NHM which includes a Psychologist , a Psychiatric Social Worker , a record keeper and a grade four among others . It is pertinent to mention here that in sharp contrast to the recommendations of the World Health Organization to engage one Psychiatrist against every ten thousand population , Darrang has so far recorded only two Psychiatrists against more than ten lakhs population .