CM vows mental healthcare for all as Covid pushes people to brink

Bhubaneswar: Ramani Ranjan Mohapatra, a 35-year-old IT professional, has been a patient at the mental health clinic for the last couple of months. He has complains of sleeplessness while working from home, constant fear of losing his job and long screen time making him feel sick.
“I feel tired but cannot sleep. I have lost interest in everything. Nothing excites me any more. Working from home without any break and the news of lay-offs also disturb me a great deal,” Mohapatra said.
Psychiatrists said there has been a considerable rise in complaints of insomnia and anxiety during the lockdown. The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic has not only made people highly wary of catching the disease, but has also taken a toll on their mental well-being.
In view of the prevalent situation, chief minister Naveen Patnaik asked people to pledge to ensure quality mental healthcare is accessible to those who are vulnerable on the World Mental Health Day on Saturday. “As the world grapples with the biggest health emergency of our time due to #COVID19 pandemic, it has brought sharp focus on mental health and wellbeing. On #WorldMentalHealthDay, pledge to ensure that quality mental health care is accessible to those who are vulnerable,” Naveen tweeted.
This year’s World Mental Health Day theme is ‘Mental Health for All: Greater Investment Greater Access’. It has been chosen by the World Federation for Mental Health in the wake of the challenges arising out of the pandemic.
“People of different age-groups are dealing with different psychological issues. The younger lot are mostly coping with breakups, which are making them irritable, frustrated, depressed, making them turn to alcohol, smoke, weed, etc. For the middle aged, job or business loss leads to sexual issues, addiction and finally ends in severe depression. Work pressure among women has been the maximum as people have been locked down at home for prolonged periods. This has led to the exacerbation of previous diseases, which were under control earlier with medication,” Suvendu Narayan Mishra, professor in psychology at IMS and SUM Hospital here, said.
Doctors said elderly persons are feeling insecure, panicky, restless, having sleep issues as they keep watching the rising Covid cases on television and feel more vulnerable to infection. “Overall, I see a huge rise in depression and addiction among all age-groups, along with sleep issues and anxiety,” Mishra added.
Citing a survey, S K Padhy, additional professor of psychiatry at AIIMS-Bhubaneswar, said, “The Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdown has led to poor sleep quality, shift in sleep cycles to delayed phases, sleep deprivation and depressive symptoms in a sizeable number of the population.”
A shift to later bedtime, delayed sleep onset, reduction in night-time sleep duration and increased daytime napping has been observed. A significant number of participants reported worsening sleep quality. Apart from insomnia, anxiety and the depressive symptom were higher than population estimates, he added.