Psychiatrists, neurologists in short supply

"For a billion people in the country," said Union minister for health and family welfare Ambumani Ramadoss, "there are only 3,500 psychiatrists and only 800 neurosurgeons," delivering the president's address at the 9th convocation of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) here on Tuesday.

The health minister is the president of the governing body of the institute which is also a deemed university conferring various degrees and diplomas in neurosciences and related subjects.

The seriousness of the situation is ill understood by most people, despite 8 per cent of all Indians needing help with mental problems, Ramadoss added. Of these, 2 per cent required hospitalisation.

"What we need is the money," he said looking at Union finance minister who was the chief guest of the event, "to set up trauma centres across the country, including some near the highways."

Of the available doctors and specialists, majority could be found in urban clusters, which meant that people in the villages who suffered mental or neurological disorders had no access to them at all, though in recent months, telemedicine projects had made a small difference.

In the cities non-communicable diseases like heart disease and diabetes will overtake infectious diseases as the major killers over the next 10 years.

In the same period, rapid strides are expected in fields like stem cell research and molecular biology. But, resources were needed to take the benefits of these technologies to a large number of people, and to train professionals who can deliver those benefits.

The Centre was setting up world-class public health institutes, which would double as training centres. The first of these would be set up in the north and the south of the country, he said, without identifying their locations.

In the next two years, healthcare delivery in the country would get international accreditation and be standardised, he said.

Union finance minister P Chidambaram in the convocation address said India spends about 4.5 per cent of its GDP on healthcare, though only about 0.9 per cent of that was public expenditure.

In the revised estimate for 2003-04, the Centre spent Rs 7,470 crore on health. In the new government's budget estimate for 2004-05, the allocation became Rs 8,438 crore and in December 2004, it was raised by another Rs 721 crore, he said.

The UPA government's national common minimum programme was committed to increasing public health expenditure to at least 2 per cent of the GDP over the next five years.

In the 10th Five Year Plan, the outlay for the national mental health programme was Rs 190 crore. In 2003-04, however, only Rs 3 crore was spent under the head.

In 2004-05, "we have increased this allocation to Rs 30 crore." A pilot healthcare programme developed for the Bellary district by NIMHANS and subsequently adopted in the other districts of the state, will be expanded to 100 districts in the country in a phased manner, he said.