Health workers at the 5th international conference on medical and health sciences 2019 are proposing deploying an adequate number of mental health professionals in the hospitals to address the growing concern. Currently, there are only three psychiatrists in the country.
With the current number of psychiatrists, treating mental disorders, a growing health issue in the country is challenged with a shortage of mental health professionals.
The number of mental health cases in the country is increasing every year. According to the annual health bulletin 2019, about 5000 mental and behavioural disorders cases were recorded in 2018 which is an increase by almost 800 compared to 2017. But the number of health professionals attending to mental health patients is just three for the entire country. Two psychiatrists with the national referral hospital and one with the armed forces hospital. Dr Damber Kumar Nirola the head of the psychiatric department said the country does not have any psychologists, occupational therapists or psychiatric social workers to date.
“Many times what happens is since we don’t have the entire team of people to provide services sometimes instead of providing therapies in the form of counselling and psychotherapy and other types of treatments we focus more on giving pharmaceutical treatment which is not right in many occasions. Some minor mental illnesses can be actually dealt by psychologists without having to go for medications. Unfortunately, we don’t have that service here and most people have been put on medication,” said Dr Damber Kumar Nirola, the Head of the Department of Psychiatry at JDWNRH.
He said because of the shortage of professionals they are overburdened with an increasing number of patients which hampers quality care for mental health patients. The department sees about 30 to 35 patients every day.
“Now, to provide good psychiatric treatment, we need a time of about 15 minutes to half an hour to talk to patients, provide some sort of counselling, and then come to a consensus on what type of medications to be put on. But here we have to rush through diagnosis, medications, and things like that,” he added.
Today in the absence of adequate mental health care professionals most of the primary health workers such as general doctors, health assistants and nurses are being trained to provide basic mental health care.
“The stigma attached to psychiatric or mental illnesses is so strong that people don’t really like to go and seek help. So if we have a dedicated person and then a mentally ill person goes there he doesn’t have to mix up with other people, probably they might feel comfortable. Since this is not working we are even thinking of increasing the number of counsellors. If we can have at least one or two clinical counsellors in each district, it will help in addressing some of the issues,” he added.
But the situation is likely to improve if the health ministry’s plan on improving mental health care comes through. The ministry has drawn a set of actions required to support mental health services which include training an adequate number of mental health professionals.
“We have plans to train more mental health professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists and clinical counsellors. And the programme is also working on creating awareness and advocacy on mental health issues. And another thing is, it is also important for us to involve other sectors because mental health is a shared responsibility. So maybe it’s also important to involve other sectors- NGOs can play a greater role in creating awareness on mental health issues,” said Dr Pandup Tshering, the Director-General for Dept. of Medical Services at Ministry of Health.
He added that until an adequate number of psychiatrists, psychologists or counsellors are available, the ministry will continue to train primary care professionals, medical officers and health assistants in diagnosing and treating common mental disorders. Anxiety disorders, panic attack disorders and depressions are the most common mental disorders which are on the rise in the country today.
Phub Gyem
