No psychiatrists in drought areas

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday raised the need to counsel farmers in the state Assembly to help curb farmer suicides.

However, it has come to light that Marathwada and Vidarbha that record the highest number of farmer suicides, do not have a single psychiatrist in the seven government hospitals to counsel them.

This year, more than 1,000 farmers committed suicide in the state due to the continuing agrarian crisis for successive years. To address the issue, the central government is laying importance on the counselling of the depressed farmers in drought-prone areas.

However, instead of strengthening the infrastructure of government hospitals in the region, the state plans to appoint Accredited Social Health Activist workers to counsel the farmers. Meanwhile, the seven government hospitals in the two regions do not have a single post graduate seat in psychiatry.

“The government wants to hide the real issue of farmer suicide by covering it up with depression issues. Two days ago, a farmer committed suicide as he was under debt of '3 lakh. How would counselling help in solving his problem ” said farmer and social activist Jayaji Suryavanshi.

The National Mental Health Programme has supported in establishing 11 centres of excellence and 27 post graduation departments in mental health specialties in the country. Sadly, these suicide-prone regions do not have received any.

“These regions need more trained psychiatrists to help the farmers. It’s surprising there is not a single post graduate seat in psychiatry in such sensitive areas that is furthering increasing the ratio gap between psychiatrists and farmers,” said Dr Sagar Mundada, a psychiatrist at JJ Hospital.

This is not the first time that the issue of counselling farmers has been raised. In a study in 2008, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences through psychological autopsy highlighted the need to counsel the farmers in the drought-prone areas, claimed activists. “Why didn’t the government take any step to post psychiatrists in these regions ” asked Mr Suryavanshi.

Dr Vyankatesh Powar, another psychiatrist from the JJ hospital said, “Economic crisis causes depression among farmers that leads to suicide. Early diagnosis can help in encouraging farmers to overcome the calamity and decrease the suicide rate by 50 per cent.” Despite repeated attempts, DMER director Dr Pravin Shingare did not respond.