VISAKHAPATNAM: Covid-19 has been a very challenging experience for the world and psychiatrists are no exception, said Vinay Lakra, president of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and director of Mental Health Services in Melbourne, Australia.
Speaking to TNIE on the sidelines of the 73rd national conference of Indian Psychiatric Society, Dr Lakra said: “One of the things psychiatrists were worried the most about was whether those in need will be able to seek help as lockdowns were announced across the globe. What helped during Covid was the role of telehealth.”
Covid gave psychiatrists an opportunity to use technology effectively to render medical services to the needy, he felt. “It revolutionised the treatment process. In Australia, focus was on how to make telehealth a permanent division of healthcare services so that there is no need to go back to the same old face to face interaction.”
Dr Lakra cited a study and said more people became anxious and distressed during the initial stages of lockdown. However, after a month or so people became resilient and bounced back to their normal life.
The pandemic proved that people are resilient and can bounce back from setbacks. “We can adapt to difficult challenging situations and we can find different ways to deal with such situations.”
The role of friends and relatives also helped people in getting through the tough times. Referring to his own case, Dr Lakra said his family stays in Delhi and he could not visit them for two years due to Covid. He said he had to depend on friends and others to help his family. “Covid definitely made us realise that social connections are very important for our well-being and to remain stable.”
Many psychiatrists across the globe were worried when the pandemic hit as people who were unwell did not seek any medical help, he said. “Thanks to telemedicine, more people reached out to us.” “In Melbourne, during the initial lockdown period, the number of patients at emergency wards went down at network hospitals. The reason was most of the patients were worried about the infection and there was a sudden drop in the number of admissions.”
There were times when emergency departments were literally empty, he said. In normal circumstances, psychiatry wards have 20 to 40 patients at any given time.Another aspect that brought a change in treatment was knowledge-sharing by medical experts from different countries and regions. He said he was in touch with his counterparts in the US, England, Hong Kong and they all learnt from each other’s experiences.
“India needs more psychiatrists. There must be more provisions to train psychiatrists at government institutions at state and national levels. Thanks to telemedicine everyone need not visit doctors.” He said local primary health centres should be connected to the major centres in the district or cities to render medical aid through digital rooms.
For any health system, workforce is important, he felt. “In a big country such as India, presence of just four or five major centres is not sufficient to meet the population’s demands,” he said. Infrastructure should be developed locally so that people need not travel long distances to seek medical help, he opined.
3-day national conference draws to a close
The three-day 73rd national conference of Indian Psychiatric Society in Visakhapatnam drew to a close on Saturday. About 2,000 mental health professionals participate in the deliberations during the conference in hybrid mode. Speaking at the valedictory, NTRUHS V- C P Syam Prasad explained the importance of mental health