Community Mental Health in India: Current Scenario.

Health services in India are with under resources & particularly mental health is suffering more. WHO estimates that nearly 75% of those affected by mental illnesses do not have access to quality mental health services due to various reasons. In India there are very few national importance institutes such as NIMHANS at Bangalore, and Central Institute of Psychiatry at Ranchi, these are mostly accessible by the semi urban and urban population villagers who require more mental health services are almost deprived. WHO's estimates, there are 0.301 psychiatrists per 100,000 population, 0.166 nurses, 0.047 psychologists, and 0.033 mental health social workers. In India government run only 43 under resourced mental hospitals which are serving a large population of 1.2 billion. Although availability of mental health services has been increased in India but there is still a wide gap between existing morbidity and services available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]