M e n t a l H e a l t h

As per World Health Organization, currently 450 million people in the world have psychological and neurological disorders, including 121 million with depression and 50 million with epilepsy. Every year one million people commit suicide and 10-20 million attempt to take their lives. About 1 % of the population suffers from major mental illness and another 10 – 15 % suffer from minor mental illnesses.

The State of Tamil Nadu has been the pioneer and leader in the field of mental health. Tamil Nadu is the only state where a psychiatrist is available at all District Head Quarters Hospital. All the 11 Govt. Medical Colleges have dept. of Psychiatry. Four Govt. Medical Colleges offer postgraduate courses in Psychiatry.

Apart from providing mental health services, the state had formed district level mental health monitoring committee with district collector, govt. officials, NGO representatives and relative of the mentally ill persons to monitor and improve the mental health services.

This website is an effort to highlight some of the mental health related activities in the state. It will provide access to information on licensing process, Mental Health related legislation, Facts about mental health mental health facilities, etc in the state. Application forms required for licensing of Psychiatric hospitals, forms required under Mental Health Act, etc can be accessed from the website.