35,000 People of Tripura Suffering From Psychic Disorders

Agartala, Sep 28 : As many as 35,000 people of Tripura have been suffering from severe mental disorders while 12 per cent population were reported to have developed psychological problems as of now, health officials revealed here today.

Director of Tripura Health Services S R Debbarma, at the fifth state conference of Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS), said the health department had been facing a critical situation with regard to providing treatment to the growing number of mental patients in Tripura.

''As per record, about one per cent of our total population has developed severe psychological problems and another about 40,000 people are at the initial phase of mental disorders but we have only 15 doctors to treat them,'' Dr Debbarma said.

He estimated that about 90 per cent of the patients had not yet been brought under the formal treatment protocol because of inadequate infrastructure and lack of trained doctors. And the current trend showed that one person in every four families in the state would develop psychological disorder by 2020 while the number of severe cases would be 15 per cent or more.

Talking to mediapersons leading psychiatrist of eastern India Dr AK Nath said more than 500 million people around the world had been suffering from mental diseases and in India it was about 18 per cent of the total population. Only 21,000 beds were available for the psychic patients in India altogether as of now, Dr Nath mentioned.

''Coupled with the expansion of average life span of men and women up to 71 and 73 years respectively, the trend of nuclear families, loneliness, feeling of social insecurity in urbanized world, unequal wealth concentration and high expectations in life are the main reasons for mental illness, tension and anxiety,'' Dr Nath observed.

A recent survey indicates that one in five young Indians between the ages of 19 and 25 have a personality disorder but lack of understanding along with the stigma attached to mental health issues prevents many from seeking treatment on time, he attributed.

Referring to the Mental Health Foundation's report Dr Nath said scientific studies had clearly linked attention deficit disorder, depression, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia to junk food and the absence of essential fats, vitamins and minerals in industrialised diets.

''Food can have an immediate and lasting effect on mental health and behaviour because of the way it affects the structure and function of the brain,'' he added.