Mental health work saves lives in India
A GROUND-BREAKING collaboration between Edge Hill University and three hospitals in Mysore, southern India, is starting to have a major impact on mental health in a region which, according to the World Health Organisation, has the highest suicide rate in the world.
The partnership, which began in 2012, aims to change local practice and tackle the stigma of mental health in one of the worst hit regions in India.
A team from Edge Hill recently visited Mysore to further build on joint mental health and dementia research and education projects with Dr Muarli Krishna, who heads the research team at Holdsworth Memorial Hospital.
Dr Steve Jones, from the faculty of health and social care, said: “We’ve already run successful projects to train nurses to carry out mental health assessments in Holdsworth Memorial Hospital and Mysore Medical College and Research Institute, and we are now working towards training inpatient psychiatric staff at JSS Hospital in Mysore.
“There are precious few community resources in India generally, and we are progressing education initiatives that will help to form community mental health teams, but this is in the very early stages.”
During the visit, the team also spoke to local doctors about Edge Hill’s masters programmes in surgery and medicine.
Steve added: “The philosophy of the collaboration is ‘Learn, earn and return’.”