The National Disaster Management Authority has said the country faces a shortage of manpower to deal with psycho-social and mental health problems that follow disasters and there is a need to evolve a system to deal with it.
For every 100 persons in the world, there are 1.2 psychiatrists and in India, the figure is 0.2. The average number of social workers globally is 0.4 and in India it is 0.03.
“There is a shortage of manpower in dealing with psycho-social problems that arise after disasters. We need to evolve a system to deal with it,” the NDMA Vice-Chairman, Mr Shashidhar Reddy, said at the national workshop on psycho-social support and mental health services during disasters.
The MLA from Andhra Pradesh said the geothermal conditions in the country coupled with impact of climate change globally are an indicator of the need to follow guidelines to deal with disasters as and when they strike.
National disaster management guidelines were released by the Union Health Minister, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, last year.
“No doubt the process of formulation of the guidelines is difficult. The real challenge, however, is implementing the guidelines. As there always seems to be a disconnect on the implementation level,” Mr Reddy said.
The ICMR Secretary from the Department of Health Research, Dr V.M. Katoch, said: “Post any disaster the effect on mental health is long lasting. Physical injury can be healed in some time but the trauma lasts for a long duration.”
Recalling his experiences in the 2005 South Asian earthquake, 2007 China earthquake, the United Nations Disaster Management Team National Convener, Mr David Mcloughlin, said: “Coordinated action among government, non-governmental agencies and civil population is required at the time any disaster strikes.”