BENGALURU: On World Brain Day, Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar inaugurated India’s first brain health clinic under the Karnataka Brain Health Initiative (Ka-BHI) at Jayanagar General Hospital, on Friday.Sudhakar said two more such centres will come up in Chikkaballapura and Kolar districts, in association with Nimhans. Stressing that the government has given importance to issues related to mental health, he said treatment will be available at all 243 Namma Clinics.
He said the brain health clinic is his dream come true. “When a person who tested positive for Covid-19 ended his life in Victoria Hospital two years ago, we realised that rather than the disease, people suffer from fear of it. So the health department took up the initiative to counsel Covid patients, and so far have counselled over 25 lakh people. The helpline started during SSLC results counselled thousands of students,” he said.
The theme for this year is ‘Brain Health for All’ and to implement it, Ka-BHI was launched in January as a joint endeavour of Nimhans and the Department of Health and Family Welfare, to increase awareness and also prevent and improve treatment for neurological diseases.
Uthappa shares his ordeal
Cricketer and Karnataka Brain Health Initiative (Ka-Bhi) ambassador Robin Uthappa, who took part in the event, shared his struggle with mental health as a youngster. He spoke about the issue being extremely personal to him, and that he would do everything in his capacity to spread awareness about it. A morning cricket session ‘Reflections with Robin’ was also organised where he played with neurologists and doctors.