The hotline for counselling and advice is 1333.

three Medical Officers then, now there are six and the nursing cadre has been augmented to 335.

Referring to restless patients, Dr. Mendis says earlier they were all kept together in one hall and the fights and injuries would be numerous, with the doctors’ time being spent on suturing their wounds. Currently, there are seclusion rooms, although it is not ideal for they are without airconditioning, automatically-locking doors, lighting that may be regulated and CCTV facilities to monitor patients. However, patients who used to sleep on the floor have been given mattresses.

The laboratory has also been renovated and expanded, the Sunday Times learns, where earlier it could conduct only three simple tests such as blood counts and blood pictures, now about 60 investigations can be carried out here.

Many other Asian countries are sending teams to study the rehabilitation psychiatry programme that has been undertaken by the NIMH, he says.

Going a step further, the NIMH has also been responsible for initiating a Diploma in Mental Health at the Post-graduate Institute of Medicine since 2008 to train doctors to take up duties as Medical Officers of Mental Health (MOMH) in different areas. Two mental health nurses have been appointed to each and every district including Jaffna since 2010, to go into homes and give injections where necessary when the patient does not come back after initial treatment. This will help prevent relapses.

The next step, according to Dr. Mendis, is to move into emergency psychiatric care by having an ambulance in every district to bring patients who need urgent help including those with suicidal or homicidal tendencies, to the NIMH. less patients brought to the hospital, would run around, sometimes without a stitch of clothing on them.

Things are different now, he explains, adding that restless patients are sedated, monitored and transferred on a trolley to the Intensive Care Unit. Clinical care has been “refined” to acute (with the hospital stay being a month), intermediate (between a month to six months) and long-term (more than six months) care, according to him.

Recalling the early days, Dr. Mendis says when he took over as Director in the early 2000s, the “hospital was in bad shape”. The therapy was to assault patients, as was the thinking then and the Consultants were tired of suggesting changes.

There was also a dearth of staff. There was only one doctor on call during the day and one at night. There were eight Psychiatrists, only 24 Medical Officers and about 140 nurses.

Now in addition to the eight Psychiatrists, there is a Physician, a Microbiologist and a Haematologist, he says, pointing out that earlier to do an ECG a patient would have to be transferred to the National Hospital.

Number-ratios have also changed, the Sunday Times learns. Where a Psychiatrist had only