The Union Health Minister J P Nadda on June 27 pitched for putting in place arrangements for detection of mental health disorders at the 1.5 lakh sub-centres that are being converted into health and wellness centres (HWCs) under the Centre's ambitious project to provide comprehensive primary healthcare facilities to the citizens.



The expansion of primary care through the 1.5 lakh HWCs, which is another pillar of Ayushman Bharat, will provide screening for tuberculosis and leprosy, along with diabetes, hypertension, breast, oral and cervical cancers, among others, Nadda said. Around 19,000 HWCs have already been approved by the cabinet and by 2022, all the 1.5 lakh sub-centres will be converted into wellness centres, he added.

"We have to see if we can detect mental health disorders at these centres and if it can be included into the screening of other diseases. We can think of training our frontline functionaries, so that the HWCs also take care of mental health disorders," Nadda said, after inaugurating the NIMHANS Digital Academy here.

Addressing the first batch of professionals enrolled for undergoing courses in the fields of psychiatry and psychiatric social work, Nadda said the passing of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 brought forth a stronger and more robust legal scaffold and a humane and patient-centric, rights-based approach for mental healthcare in the country.

"We have to implement it and we must match up to the speed, skill and scale, as has been said by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to get the desired results," he said. Nadda added that as far as skill was concerned, NIMHANS was always in the forefront of capacity building and human resource training in the country. It had been a pioneer in developing the National Mental Health Programme, a community-based mental health programmes.

Nadda also released the modules and curricula for various training programmes to be undertaken at the NIMHANS Digital Academy. B N Gangadhar, Director, NIMHANS said the initiative would address the issues related to mental healthcare. He added that up to 50 persons could be trained in a virtual classroom with only a mobile phone with 3G connection. The NIMHANS has established the infrastructure for starting a digital academy to provide large-scale training to healthcare service providers like medical officers, psychologists, social workers and nurses to deliver quality mental healthcare services throughout the country.