No psychiatrist for drug de-addiction programme cell

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 19

The state government may be putting in renewed efforts in its “war on drugs”, but Punjab’s Mental Health Cell — which handles the entire de-addiction programme — strikes a jarring note. Not a single psychiatrist is working in the cell.  

Besides being instrumental in formulating policies regarding the de-addiction programme, the cell also acts as the nodal agency for all government and private drug de-addiction and rehabilitation centres. However, forget a psychiatrist, there are just two doctors, a clerk and a data entry operator who comprise the team with which the Health Department is waging its “war”. 

“It is hard to imagine non-psychiatrists at the helm of a Mental Health Cell. Psychiatry is a complex science, a non-psychiatrist can’t do justice with the programme,” said Dr BS Chavan,  Director, GMCH, Chandigarh. 

Dr Sukhwinder Kaur, Programme Officer of the de-addiction programme, holds a degree in community medicine and has been working in the cell for five years. Deputy Director (Mental Health) Dr Purnima Sehgal, in charge of the programme including de-addiction, holds an MBBS degree, with no psychiatry qualification. 

Over the past five years, five deputy directors have remained in charge of Mental Health Cell, but none of them was a psychiatrist. 

Satish Chandra, Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare), said there is an acute shortage of psychiatrists in the state (Punjab has around 30 government psychiatrists), so it is difficult to spare even one from clinical work. “Whatever guidelines or policy-related decisions we take, the department does that in consultation with a panel of psychiatric experts,” he reasoned. He said the government has constituted a Mental Health Authority, under which the entire structure of the cell will be changed. “In light of The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, whatever is required will be done.” The state has 22 government de-addiction and 33 rehabilitation centres. The 80 Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment Centres are run by MBBS doctors, with a brief training in de-addiction.