Panaji: Due to the stigma attached to mental health and the reluctance of people in seeking help, health minister Vishwajit Rane, said he has moved a file to change the name of the Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour (IPHB). “We must do this so that young people who visit the institute for treatment and counselling are not stigmatised,” said Rane at the state-level mental health and well-being event at GMC on Wednesday.“Depression can consume a person, sometimes even more than a deadly allopathic disease, and there is a need to strengthen community mental health and wellness and aggressively deal with the stigma attached to seeking help for mental health,” he added.
Professor Vikram Patel, co-founder of Sangath, said Goa could very well be the first state to achieve universal health coverage through the public health system because the state has everything it needs. “It has the people, the infrastructure, and the leadership.”Through the integrated programme, more than 15,000 counselling sessions were provided to more than 700 patients. Patel said the programme, found to be highly effective in Goa, is now adapted and also used in other states and other countries like Nepal, Uganda, USA, and Canada.Since Sep 2022, health services and Sangath, a health care voluntary body, trained 97 primary care staff to provide counselling for depression across 30 primary and secondary health care centres under the IMPRESS Programme, which aims to improve access to care for depression. Of the 1.4 lakh individuals screened, 22,000 tested positive for depression and provided help, Dr Sandesh Madkaikar, chief medical officer at health services said.
