From Mayukh Goswami
Mangaldai :: The State Health and Family Welfare Department has recently stated that steps are being taken in the district level for a full fledged indoor psychiatric ward in Mangaldai Civil Hospital (MCH) . This statement has come from the government while responding to an order from the Assam Human Rights Commission (AHRC) against its case no. 4068 of 2020-21 (3) /5. However there was no detail mention about the steps taken . In the answers it was also written that presently there are two psychiatrists in MCH and one of them is working as District Programme Officer (DPO) of District Mental Health Programme (DMHP) , Darrang .Moreover six numbers of doctors from the periphery health centres have been trained in the treatment of mentally ill persons at Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi Regional Institution of Mental Health (LGBRIMH), Tezpur .
They are rendering treatment to mentally ill persons on outdoor basis in the PHCs and CHCs of the district . They refer the patients to MCH if needed . Regarding filling up the vacant most of the community nurse in the Psychiatric department of MCH , the government informed AHRC that process will be initiated for recruitment of the post under National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) in the current financial year 2021-22 after approval of fund from Govt of India .It was also informed that as there is no separate indoor Psychiatric ward , five beds in male medicine ward and five beds in female medicine ward have been earmarked for mentally ill patients . The unmanageable patients are being referred to LGBRIMH,Tezpur. It is pertinent to note here that advocate Jayanta Deka , who led the lawyers group here to file a complaint before the AHRC about the govt apathy towards the mental health care facility in the district hospital on the basis of new report published in the media in the month of February. Further another story was published in the media , highlighting the fact that even after more than two months of the deadline of April 22 , set by the AHRC , the government failed to respond .
