With more than 300 million cases around the world, depression is the single largest public health problem in the world according to the World Health Organization. A 2016 report suggests that India has a critical problem of a large number of people dealing with depression and anxiety, with about one in every five Indians suffering from some mental health issue and 50% of corporate India under severe stress. Research suggests that many of these conditions are caused by a combination of biological, psychological, and environmental factors. But while discourse around physical health and well-being is growing in the country, awareness and acceptance of mental health issues is still vastly lacking. A 2018 World Economic Forum survey held in India showed that 57% of respondents claimed to “sometimes fear” the mentally ill, while 60% felt that mentally ill people should be segregated. While the lack of frank conversations around mental health is a key impediment, experts say this adds to scarcer resources and doctors available. Only 10-12% of those suffering from mental ailments get professional treatment according to a 2017 WHO report. 

Join us as we speak to Prabha Chandra, Head of Department Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience as moderator, Samir Parikh, Director of Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, Fortis Healthcare, Vikram Patel, Psychiatrist and Researcher specializing in social medicine in low income countries, and Jerry Pinto, Author of the critically acclaimed Emm and the Big Hoom, as we discuss the mental health crisis in India.  

Dr Prabha Chandra is Professor and Head of Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore. She completed her medical studies from Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi and MD in Psychiatry from NIMHANS. She is a member of several National and International Organisations and has also served as a Temporary Advisor to the WHO and UNAIDS. She is currently the Secretary of the International Association of Women’s Mental Health.

Dr Samir Parikh is a Consultant Psychiatrist with Fortis Healthcare, a leading healthcare of India, and is the Chairperson of the Fortis National Mental Health Program. Under Dr. Parikh’s leadership, the Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Healthcare has grown with various departments and serves across the network of hospitals. Through a multi-disciplinary approach, Dr. Parikh has been instrumental in integrating mental health into mainstream healthcare. To take forward his vision of promoting preventive mental health within the school setting, he has established the “Fortis School Mental Health Program” - specialized program through which various seminars and workshops are conducted for schools.

Dr Vikram Patel is The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. His work has focused on the burden of mental disorders, their association with social disadvantage, and the use of community resources for their prevention and treatment. He holds Honorary Professorship at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, an Honorary OBE from the UK Government and is a co-founder of Sangath, an Indian NGO which won the MacArthur Foundation’s International Prize for Creative and Effective Institutions (2008 ) and the WHO Public Health Champion of India award (2016). He was listed in TIME Magazine’s 2015 100 most influential persons of the year.

Jerry Pinto is the author of several books including Em and the Big Hoom, a novel in which a Mumbai family deals with a bipolar mother. This won the Crossword Award for Fiction, the Hindu Lit for Life Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Windham-Campbell Prize awarded by the Beinecke Library at Yale University, USA. He has also edited A Book of Light: When a Loved One Has a Different Mind, which brought together several stories. He is a translator of note and his translation of Swadesh Deepak's I Have Not Seen Mandu; A Fractured Autobiography of the playwright's breakdown and recovery, is expected later this year. 

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