The Kerala chapter of the Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) is toying with a proposal to offer telemedicine consultation for COVID-19 patients at care facilities requiring counselling and psychiatric assessment.
The seed for the initiative germinated based on the inference that a COVID-19 patient admitted at a care facility may not be able to connect effectively with a psychiatrist found wearing the heavy and layered personal protective equipment (PPE). “The patient will be able to see our eyes only when we are in the PPE kit. Unlike a medical doctor, the face-to-face contact is key in the interaction between a mental health professional and the patient. The telemedicine facility can be a solution to overcome this gap,” pointed out Sebind Kumar, secretary, IPS Kerala chapter.
“The executive committee has started debating the proposal. The government will have to issue necessary guidelines for offering telemedicine consultation to COVID-19 patients at care facilities. The consolation a patient receives from connecting the persona of the doctor through a video call is much more than that gained through the mere eyes of the psychiatrist peering through the PPE gear,” Dr. Kumar said.
Elaborating on the advantages of telemedicine technology, he said the provision in the telemedicine guidelines that prescriptions can be offered via social media messaging platforms proved beneficial, especially to the mental health patients in this lockdown period. “As it’s difficult to get psychiatric medicine over the counter, several patients were worried. We had issued prescriptions to them through messaging applications and medical stores had accepted it as per the latest guidelines,” he said.
On the nature of calls received at the helpline facility (9072571607) offered by members of the State unit as part of a nationwide initiative by IPS after the COVID-19 outbreak, Dr. Kumar said they had received calls from Malayalis not only in the State but even from countries like UAE and Spain. “We came across issues like anxiety and stress, especially among patients with pre-existing mental illnesses, during this period,” he said.