Mental Healthcare is a Fundamental Human Right | UnBreak the News with Prema Sridevi | Ep: 97

Rights of mentally ill patients. Today is the World Mental Health Day. The media has always and often portrayed depression as a rich man’s disease. Mental health-related issues are discussed in the context of the biographies of rich and famous celebrities and Hollywood and Bollywood actors who have battled the disorder. But did you know that the conditions of many mental health hospitals in India’s towns and villages are pathetic?

Even today, the poor are chained. They are tied to their beds in mental hospitals. They are forcefully administered shock treatments. They are assaulted, locked in rooms and brutalised. Many of our country’s poor don’t have recourse when they have a mental health issue because our government doesn’t spend enough on mental health services. And this is not just India’s problem. Prema Sridevi UnBreaks this News for you!

(Produced below are the abridged version of the transcripts of the video explainer from Episode: 97 | UnBreak the News with Prema Sridevi | Title: Mental Healthcare is a Fundamental Human Right) 

Today is the World Mental Health Day. When we talk about mental health-related issues, what comes to mind? The media has always and often portrayed depression as a rich man’s disease. Mental health-related issues are discussed in the context of the biographies of rich and famous celebrities and Hollywood and Bollywood actors who have battled the disorder. But did you know that the conditions of many mental health hospitals in India’s towns and villages are pathetic? 

Even today, the poor are chained. They are tied to their beds in mental hospitals. They are forcefully administered shock treatments. They are assaulted, locked in rooms and brutalised. Many of our country’s poor don’t have recourse when they have a mental health issue because our government doesn’t spend enough on mental health services. And this is not just India’s problem. Let’s UnBreak this News!

In June this year, Pavlov hospital in Kolkata, one of the prominent mental hospitals in West Bengal, was served a show-cause notice by the West Bengal state health department for “gross negligence”. During an inspection, it was found that at least 13 female inmates were locked inside two rooms in the hospital. 

Pavlov Hospital in Kolkata | Photo courtesy: Special arrangement

“The rooms were dark, shabby, dirty with broken iron cots strewn across the floor, thereby exposing the inmates to the risk of being injured by the rusted, sharp and broken ends of the iron cots. The hospital Superintendent came much later and could not provide any logic to the inhuman lodgement of those inmates. On enquiry, the on-duty nursing staff said that they were housed there on the advice of the psychiatrist on the ground of their violent behaviour, but they failed to produce any written advice to that effect,” said the news report quoting the inspection document.

The report stated that even the utensils used for serving food were not cleaned by the caretakers. But this is not just the story of one hospital in India. 

A report filed by Vice News in 2015 investigated what it’s like to be deemed a woman with mental health illness in Maharashtra. The story exposed how women were subjected to gross neglect, and their basic human rights were violated in mental healthcare centres. In the report, the staff of a mental health care centre can be seen admitting that ECT, which is Electroconvulsive Therapy, also known as Electroshock Therapy, is given to most female patients. Experts say the situation is no different today. 

Electroencephalography (EEG) in a modern ECT suite | Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Rights of mentally ill patients In 2019, the media reported a shocking story from Uttar Pradesh where thousands of mentally ill people were found to be chained like cattle for years in a shed in the state. The report stated, “people with psychological disorders were shackled like cattle, their feet tied with iron chains and padlocked for days, months and years in UP’s Badaun”.

In many places in India, poor mental health patients are heartlessly abandoned by family members and relatives. In Maharashtra alone, a report found: “As per data from January 2016 to September 2021, procured by The Indian Express, a total of 5,877 patients with mental ailments have been abandoned by their relatives in the four regional mental hospitals— Pune, Thane, Raigad and Nagpur.”

World Mental Health Day 2022 | Photo courtesy: Special arrangement

According to reports, India is one of the countries with the highest number of depressed people in the world. In third-world countries, millions of poor people are ill-treated in mental health hospitals. As per global statistics, one in eight of us is affected by mental health issues. Data suggests that the Covid-19 pandemic alone has caused a 25 per cent increase in the prevalence of depression and anxiety across the world, but unfortunately, governments across nations are not spending enough to tackle the mental health crisis. 

A press statement released by the World health organisation this year states: WHO’s most recent Mental Health Atlas showed that in 2020, governments worldwide spent on average just over 2% of their health budgets on mental health, and many low-income countries reported having fewer than one mental health worker per 100 000 people."

Depression is a difficult conversation and gets even more complicated if it’s about mental health-related problems amongst the poor. Rights of mentally ill patients. Mental health issues are deep wounds that never show on the body but cut deeper and are more hurtful than anything that bleeds. Millions of us need help, and the ones suffering the most are underprivileged. This scenario will only change when governments recognise that mental health issues are a major public health concern. The widening gap between the haves and the have-nots when it comes to access to mental healthcare must be bridged because mental healthcare is not a luxury or privilege of a selected few. It is a fundamental human right of every individual.