BJP Rajya Sabha member KC Ramamurthy on Friday urged the Centre to take steps to increase the number of psychiatrists in the country by hiking the number of seats in medical colleges to meet the growing demand.
As per one estimate, nearly 160 million people in the country need mental therapy, whereas, only about 30-35 million are seeking advice and taking care. The National Mental Health Survey also revealed that India has 0.75 per cent psychiatrists for one lakh problems; whereas the desirable number is 3 psychiatrists, per one lakh of population, he said in Rajya Sabha.
As per an estimate of the Government of India itself, the country needed about 13,000 psychiatrists but had only 3,500. Against the required 20,000 chemical psychologists, they have only a little more than 1,500 available. We need 35,000 psychiatrist social workers, but we have only 2,000. We need 30,000 psychiatrist nurses, but we have only 2,500, he said.
The government should increase the number of seats in psychiatry at various levels and
encourage the students to take psychology as a subject. Services of psychiatrists should be provided in all districts and important hospitals, he demanded.
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