Treating the invisible pandemic

Relevance: To understand the impact of the Pandemic on mental health

Synopsis: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) report highlighted the impact on mental health by the pandemic. This needs a robust multi-stakeholder response at the central, state and local levels.

Introduction

India’s response to disasters is reasonably good. But this is confined to visible damage and relief like providing houses, food grains or compensation.

What is often ignored is the invisible mental damage done to individuals. It is often confined to providing helplines.

Crisis phases:

Every disaster can be classified into pre-impact phase, impact phase and post-impact phase. Not every disaster may have a pre-impact phase, but the impact and post-impact phase will remain.

Covid pandemic is unique since the impact phase has lasted 14 months and has nearly impacted every one, in some way or the other. Survey back up this fact by revealing the prevalence of emotional disturbances.

Indian Scenario:

ICMR 2019 study revealed that 1/7 Indians is mentally ill. It identified that about 20 crore Indians need treatment.

National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) 2019 study revealed that one out of 3 people who committed suicide were torn by family problems.

Nearly 1/4th of people losing lives from self-damage are daily wage labourers.

Identifying the sections in need of mental support

Covid 19 has exacerbated such vulnerabilities. So six vulnerable groups need immediate attention:

• Family who lost their dear ones to Covid 19
• People who have or have had infections, and also their family members
• Healthcare workers and those involved in emergency care
• Those that have lost their job and suffered financial losses
• Those with pre-existing mental or physical illness
• Children, marginalized groups and elders.

Steps to implement such a program:

1. Initiative should be coordinated by state governments and the module can be adapted to local needs.
2. Every district should have two coordinators from the mental health field.
3. A protocol should be evolved by a multidisciplinary mental health taskforce after detailed discussions.
4. We should rope in Psychologists, psychiatrists, medical, social workers, counselors, ASHA workers, NGOs and emotional aid workers for this humane task.
5. After screening, the multidisciplinary mental health taskforce will categorize survivors into groups based on the requirements — counselling, medication, or both, hospitalization, simple advice and information.
6. The taskforce should also have processes for directing emergency treatment of those with serious symptoms.
7. This should be followed by regular meetings, updates, discussing best practices, etc.

Way forward

We should not wait for time to heal the mental health issues. Mental health intervention completes the rehabilitation cycle and makes it robust and holistic.

Terms to know

• Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
• National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)