Two-day conference on forensic psychiatry begins at GMC
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, April 2
The two day conference on forensic psychiatry was inaugurated here today. The conference is being organised by the Psychiatry Department of Government Medical College (GMC).
To bring awareness about forensic psychiatry in North India, a multidisciplinary team led by Dr Ramneesh Puri and Dr Manjit S Gahir, both consultant forensic psychiatrists in the UK, participated in the conference. They spoke on how forensic psychiatry could help persons with mental disorders, who commit serious or non serious crimes.
Dr Puri said, “This is the branch of psychiatry that sits at the interface with law and deals with criminal matters, prisons and courts.” He said up to 25 per cent of the population across the world was gripped with one or other mental disorders at any given time.
“If a person is convicted for some violent or non violent crime commissioned in a mentally unwell state, he or she is thrown behind bars here, but in countries like the UK, it is not so. Society extends its hands to help these ‘non criminals’ whilst continuing to manage their risk to the general public. We need a similar kind of awareness and processes in Indian society too,” added Dr Puri.
He said in non serious or non violent crimes there was no need to lodge such criminals in jails and the courts could issue supervision orders directing such persons to regularly appear before psychiatrists for their treatment in community.
The duo’s work is based at Rampton High Security Hospital in Nottingham, UK. Dr Puri also works as visiting psychiatrist at two large prisons in the area and Dr Gahir specialises in the field of deaf psychiatry.
Dr Sunita Guha, clinical psychologist, Jackie Nussey, deaf social worker, Alexis Lepp, senior clinical pharmacist, Jason Lowe, nurse practitioner and Hannah Cobb, sign language interpreter, all from the UK, also spoke on the occasion.
Organising chairman and head of the department, Dr PD Garg, thanked all experts for attending the conference and sharing their experiences with psychiatrists from Punjab and Haryana.
