HYDERABAD: As Hyderabad observed a series of mental health awareness campaigns in the last week, the critical question doctors and health experts raise is, why is Telangana government ignoring mental health from its flagship Aarogyasri scheme? At present, the Aarogyasri scheme provide affordable and accessible health care to below poverty line category persons. However, doctors from Gandhi Medical College and Hospital confirm that mental health evaluation and treatment is still not under the scheme.
The scheme, while managing to cover a whole gamut of 949 sophisticated procedures ranging from heart, lung, liver, pancreas, kidney, neuro-surgery, paediatric congenital malformations, burns, post-burn contracture etc, somehow eliminates any discussion on mental health.
The reason why mental health is not under Aarogyasri, sources from Aarogyasri Health Care Trust say, is because mental health care is often regarded as something that doesn’t require a patient to be admitted in hospital for treatment.
However, experts note that it is not the case. One of the major issue is that mental health complications are not treated like physical health in our country. Individuals do suffer from multiple mental disorders at a time, which requires hospitalisation and in-patient treatment and therefore it is very important that Aarogyasri include a comprehensive structure for mental health facilities,” noted Anupama Anaparthi, professor at the Department of Psychology in Osmania University.
For instance, extreme cases of schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder require hospitalisation but fails to be covered under the scheme. At the same time, doctors note that such an exclusion from the list of procedures could dramatically affect the overall health of the people as it can add to the total disease burden and reduce the State’s productivity.