Greater Noida hospital starts suicide helpline

Greater Noida: Sharda hospital on Monday launched a dedicated 24x7 suicide helpline to address increasing queries related to anxiety and depression.
The helpline will be manned by a senior, trained psychiatrist from the hospital’s department of psychiatry unlike the usual appointment of juniors for the job. Additional faculty will be deployed if the queries increase.
Residents can dial +918287446305 and 0120-2329700 with Extn 9735 to reach the specialist.
The “suicide helpline” is separate from the current 24x7 Covid control room helpline number 0120-2323625, which was launched by the hospital on July 1.
Elaborating on it, Dr Kunal Kumar, head of department psychiatry at Sharda University’s School of Medical Sciences and Research (SMSR), said that the idea of the helpline came from the work and queries they received while organising mental health camps by the department of psychiatry that currently has 10 members, including four resident professors, two assistant professors, one associate professor, two clinical psychologists, four junior residents and one senior resident doctor.
“We have been working on mental health programmes through dedicated camps since pre-Covid days and we noticed that during the pandemic, the number of patients with anxiety, stress, tension etc. related issues increased in the district,” the doctor said, adding that they received of 1-2 calls related to feelings of suicide every second or third day and the number has further increased now after Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.