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1. NATIONAL MENTAL
HEALTH POLICY VIS-À-VIS
NATIONAL HEALTH
POLICY
PREPARED BY,
Vipin Chandran

2. CONCEPT…
• According to WHO, “Mental Health Policies
describe the values, objectives & strategies
of the Government to reduce the Mental
Health burden & to improve mental health.
• They define a vision for helps the future that
helps to establish a blueprint for the
prevention & treatment of mental illness, the
rehabilitation of people with mental
disorders, & the promotion of mental health
in the community.

3. COUNT
...
• The first draft of National Mental Health
Policy (NMHP) was prepared in late 2001 &
came into existence in 2003.
• The NMHP will provide the necessary
conceptual framework for achieving goals.
• The NMHP is being energetically
implemented, with adequate budgetary
support in the 10th five yearplan.

4. POLICY OBJECTIVES…
1. The District Mental Health Program
(DMHP) is redesigned around a nodal
institution, where most instances will
be the zonal medical college. School
mental health programs & dementia
care services may be gradually
integrated with the DMHP.

5. COUNT…
2. Strengthening the medical college
psychiatry departments with a view to
develop psychiatric manpower, improve
psychiatric treatment facilities at secondary
level & to promote the development of
general psychiatric hospitals in order to
reduce & eventually to eliminate, to a large
extent the need for big mental hospitals
with all their attendant infirmities.

6. COUNT…
3. Streamlining & modernization of
mental hospitals to transform them
from the present, mainly custodial
mode to tertiary care centers to
excellence with a dynamic social
orientation for providing leadership to
Research & Development (R & D) in
the field of community mental health.

7. COUNT…
4. Strengthening of Central & State
Mental Health Authorities in order that
they may effectively fulfill their role of
monitoring ongoing mental health
programs, determining priorities at the
central / state level & promoting
intersectoral collaboration & linkages
with other national programs.

8. COUNT…
5. Research & training aimed at building up
an extensive database of epidemiological
information relating to mental disorders &
their course / outcome, development of
better & more cost effective intervention
models, promotion of intersectoral
research & providing the necessary
inputs/conceptual framework for health &
policy planning.

9. COUNT…
6. Focused Information Education &
Communication (IEC) activities with the
active collaboration of professional
agencies such as the Indian Institute of
Mass Communication & directed towards
enhancing public awareness & eradicating
the stigma / discrimination related to
mental illness, will form an important
component of this policy objective.

10. PRIORITIZED GOALS
TENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (2002-2007):
• District mental health program will be
extended to one district attached to each of
the 100 medical colleges in the country,
thereby covering 100 district in the first
phase, & there after expanding to 100
district more in the second phase, thus
making a total of 200 districts across the
country.

11. COUNT…
• Strengthening of medical colleges with
allocation of Rs. 50 lakhs each to 100 medical
colleges, for upgrading departments of
psychiatry.
• Strengthening & modernization of mental
hospitals with the aim of reduction in chronicity
through intensive therapeutic intervention using
non-conventional anti-psychotic medication,
promoting care of chronically mentally ill patient
in the community using outreach maintenance
modalities.

12. COUNT…
ELEVENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (2007-2012)
• The DMHP will be extended to another lot of
200 district while consolidating same in 200
district covered at the end of 10th plan.
• Qualitative as well as quantitative
improvement will be introduced in the areas
of research, training & IEC, with more
focused attention on epidemiological
catchment area surveys on a larger scale.

13. COUNT…
TWELTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (2012-2017):
• The DMHP will be extended to the remaining
193 districts & the gains made in the previous
plans will be consolidated, further upgradation
of the psychiatric departments in medical
colleges will be undertaken & 20 mental
hospitals will be reconstructed.
• IEC activities will be augmented to cover all
sections of the population across the whole
country.

14. SPECIAL ISSUES
• Senior citizens suffering from severely disabling
disease such as Alzheimer’s & other types of
dementia, Parkinson’s disease, depression of late
onset & other psycho geriatric disorders.
• Victims of child sexual abuse, marital / domestic
violence, dowry related ill treatment, rape & incest.
• Victims of poverty, destitution & abandonment, such
as women thrown out of the marital home or old &
infirm parents left to fend for themselves.

15. COUNT…
• Children & adolescents affected by problems
of maladjustments or other scholastic
problems, depression/psychosis of early
onset, attention deficit hyper activity disorders
& suicidal behavior resulting from failure in
examination or other environmental stressors.
• Victims of natural or man-made disasters
such as cyclones, war, terrorism with special
attention to the specific needs of children
orphaned by such disasters.

16. • NHP was formulated in 1983 & revised in 2002
Objectives:
The main objective of NHP-2002 is to achieve an
acceptable standard of good health amongst
the general population in the country. The
approach would be to increase access to the
decentralized public health system by
establishing new infrastructure deficient areas &
by upgrading the infrastructure in the existing
institutions.

17. SPECIAL RECOMMENDATION
WITH REGARD TO MENTAL
HEALTH:
• Upgrading infrastructure of institutions at
Central Government expense so as to
secure the human rights of this vulnerable
segment of society.
• Envisages a network of decentralized
mental health services for ameliorating the
more common categories of disorders.

18. SPECIAL DISCUSSION
REGARDING MENTAL HEALTH…
• Mental health disorders are actually much
more prevalent than is apparent on the
surface. While such disorders do not
contribute significantly to mortality, they have
a serious bearing on the quality of life of the
affected persons & their families.
• Mental health institutions are woefully
deficient in physical infrastructure & trained
manpower. NHP-2002 will address itself to
these deficiencies in the public health sector.

19. THANK YOU