What student should know about Tele MANAS

Volume 13 Issues 3 March, 2023

COVID pandemic caused havoc in lives of people and especially mental health of people took a great toll. To surf this crisis, on behalf of Government of India, NIMHANS setup a national helpline for psychosocial support and mental health services. It received more than 6 lakh calls to alleviate various kind of stress related concerns.

In background of these spike in mental health issues and India being a country of 1.4 billion and to cater mental health needs of the country for long term a “National Tele Mental Health program” was planned during February 2022 and the Programme called TeleMANAS (Tele Mental Health Assistance and Networking Across States) was launched by Government of India on October 10^th 2022. It also deemed as digital arm of DMHP (District Mental Health Programme) to cater mental health needs of the population at large.

How does it function?

Any individual with mental health issues can reach out to Tele MANAS services for help by calling Toll free number 14416. It is available 24×7.

Tele-Mental health services include providing advice, counselling, connecting with a mental health professional for tele-psychiatry services, and helps providing possible care to people unable to come physically to a hospital or a help centre.

Tele MANAS will be organized as a two-tier system.

• Tier 1 will comprise the State Tele MANAS cells, which includes trained counsellors and mental health specialists.
• Tier 2 will comprise specialists at District Mental Health Programme (DMHP)/Medical College resources for physical consultation and/or e-Sanjeevani for audio visual consultation.

TeleMANAS has utilised technology to cater the needs and reduce the mental health gap, by making access to mental health service comfortable, at free cost from the place of person’s needs. As of February, this programme has received more than fifty thousand calls throughout the country.

Reference:

https://telemanas.mohfw.gov.in/#/home

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