We are happy to announce that after a lot of discussions and persistent efforts, we were able to finally initiate the District Mental Health Programme (DMHP) in coordination with the team of National Health Mission (NHM) and DMHO in Adilabad. DMHP is a mandatory programme which needs to be implemented in every district across the country, but considering it isn’t happening yet and a dialogue is still on with the state officials of Telangana, we thought that it cannot wait in Adilabad and something needs to be done immediately given the rising number of suicides and overall distress there and hence started the program today.
Awareness programmes related to mental health and prevention of farmer suicides through Kisan Mitra have started today in a couple of mandals. Medical officers, paramedical staff and ASHA workers of the concerned PHCs along with the Kisan Mitra team are driving this activity.
We are making sure to take care and also convey that rural distress and farmer suicides aren’t just psychological but a combination of social, economical and other factors contributing to their distress which will also be addressed and resolved through Kisan Mitra along with Counselling.
Background
World Health Organisation has brought Non Communicable Diseases and Mental Health under one cluster considering psychological illnesses often coexist with other non-communicable diseases and they share many risk factors. Hence we wanted to group mental health awareness as a part of NCD Outreach activity through NHM.