President Pranab Mukherjee today said traditional Indian values and Yoga can become good mechanisms to support people suffering from mental health disorders. Inaugurating the first NIMCARE World Health Day Summit 2017 in New Delhi, Mr Mukherjee said, the social stigma attached to mental disorders remains a major problem in India.
The slogan of the summit is ‘Unite for a Healthy Mind’. Mr Mukherjee stated that lack of mental well-being imposes significantly to the total disability and morbidity burden across the world. Productivity of human beings, whether in workforce or in family situations, gets reduced significantly if one has any mental disorder.
The President said, out of all the mental health disorders, depression is probably the most common. Depression affects people of all ages from all walks of life and in all countries. Mr Mukherjee said, as per the National Mental Health Survey 2015-16, 5.2 percent of the Indian adult population suffers from depression in some form or the other.
President said that there is a severe shortage of mental health professionals in India and this service gap can be bridged effectively by telemedicine. He urged all to strive to make even greater progress in the efforts to create awareness about depression and focus on further strengthening country health care delivery systems.
