Srinagar, Dec 4: Notwithstanding the infrastructural impediments, Department of Psychiatry has come up as one of the pivotal faculties at the SKIMS Medical College Bemina.
 Established with the objective of providing psychiatric consultation in conjunction with the general patient-care, the Psychiatric Department at the college is the only such facility outside the Psychiatric Diseases Hospital, Rainawari.
 Starting with almost zero patients in 1999, the SKIMS Medical College Psychiatric Department attends to an average 70 patients a day in its OPD. “The objective of establishing a functional psychiatric department outside the associated Psychiatric Diseases Hospital was to integrate the psychiatric consultation with general patient-care to avoid perceived stigmatization,” Dr Wahid A Khan, Head of Psychiatric Department at the Hospital said adding that as per the provisions of the national mental health program such integrated facilities for the psychiatric patients were now being replicated at most of the medical centres throughout the country.
 According to Dr Wahid another advantage of integrating psychiatric consultation with general patient-care was that, most of the times patients with psychiatric problems misread their ailment as some organic trouble and ramble around without proper diagnosis.
 “In integrated facilities such patients are readily referred to the psychiatric department and vice versa,” he said adding that easy accessibility to almost all the areas o the Valley was the added advantage of SKIMS Medical College.
 “Given the response of the psychiatric patient inflow at the SKIMS Medical College, we have now, on the initiative of Director SKIMS and Principal SKIMS Medical College, extended the OPD facility to SKIMS Soura as well and are conducting one-day-a-week OPD on Thursdays there,” Dr Khan said adding that the department is ready to coordinate with the Directorate of Health Services to provide psychiatric care at the grassroots level through its wide network of hospitals.
 “Given the enormous increase in psychiatric patients across the Valley, because of the turmoil, we require to expand our reach and capacity, with a sense of urgency, to attend to the needy patients,” he said.
 “We have recently started once-a-week psychiatric OPD at SKIMS Soura and given the response of the patients, we are planning to extend it by two days-a-week,” said Dr Syed Amin Taabish, Medical Superintendent SKIMS Soura.
 “To upgrade the psychiatric facilities in the State, we are planning to coordinate with major psychiatric centers outside the country and informal deliberations have already been started with some psychiatric centers in the US and other countries,” Dr Khan said. With an approved post of Clinical Psychologist and a team of four Consultants, two Senior Residents, three Junior Residents and several Interns in place, the SKIMS Medical College, Psychiatric Department is fully geared to launch PG in psychiatry. However, the only hitch is non-availability of a spacious ward for the purpose. “Although we have all the basic facilities including faculty, seminar room, library and equipment available to launch the PG course, but we don’t have adequate ward facility,” says Dr Khan. He said the Department has eight beds available to admit patients, however for PG course they need to have at least a 32-bed capacity ward.
 The Department is in the process of formulating a proposal for funding to get a fully equipped exclusive ward for the psychiatric patients at SKIMS Medical College so that the PG course could be started at the earliest.
 When contacted Principal SKIMS Medical College Bemina, Dr Mushtaq while admitting that paucity of beds was an impediment in starting PG course in the Psychiatry Department, however, said the Government has already approved augmentation of the bed capacity in the hospital from the existing 230 to 430.  “That would also encompass additional beds for the Psychiatry Department to facilitate it start the PG courses,” he said and added that the Department was doing well and needs focused attention for growth and expansion.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 4 Dec 2009 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 4 Dec 2009 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 5 Dec 2009 00:00:00 IST