Volume 4 Issue 3 March, 2014
Child Psychiatric Services in India: The Forgotten Majority!!
India has 440 million children i.e. every fifth child in the world is an Indian! In our country, child mental health services have been neglected in the past 66 years after independence. Organized facilities for psychiatric care of children and adolescents are far and few. According to the WHO statistics, prevalence of disabling mental illnesses among children and adolescence attending urban health care centers ranges between 20-30% and 13-18% in rural areas. Out of these children 3-4% are suffering from serious mental illnesses and require treatment. Only one out of the 100 gets some care and treatment and it is high time that we reach out to 99% of the child population that is being unattended by any agency. The first ever child guidance clinic (CGC) in India was started by the Tata Institute of Social sciences, Mumbai in 1937. In the past 77 years the establishment and development of CGC clinics is occurring in a snails
pace and the distribution is skewed with majority of the centers located in the urban metros. It is time for a paradigm shift and to use the available resources both governmental and non governmental to establish holistic child guidance centers with an emphasis on prevention, early detection and treatment of mental illness in children.
Consultant Psychiatrist, Bangalore.
