ADDRESS BY PROF. K. V. THOMAS, HON’BLE MINISTER OF STATE (I/C) CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOOD & PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION, GOVT. OF INDIA AS GUEST-OF-HONOUR AT THE 64TH ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF INDIAN PSYCHIATRIC SOCIETY AT COCHIN ON 19TH JANUARY, 2012:
Shri Vayalar Ravi, Hon’ble Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs, Shri K. Babu, Hon’ble Minister for Excise and Ports, Government of Kerala, Dr. A.J. John, Chairperson, Organizing Committee, Dr. M. Thirunavukkarasu, the President of IPS, Dr. Kuruvilla Thomas, Organizing Secretary, Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, the incoming President of the IPS, Dr. Dinesh Bhugra, President-Elect, World Psychiatric Association, Dr. U.C. Garg, Honorary General Secretary of the IPS, friends from the media and ladies and gentlemen:
I am happy to be here amidst you at the 64th Annual National Conference of Indian Psychiatric Society in this beautiful city of Cochin which is hosting this Conference for the second time after 12 years. Shri Vayalar Ravi, my senior colleague, through his informative and educative inaugural address has brought to our attention the ills afflicting a society that is growing at a great speed but which also leaves back its trial of lifestyle deceases, the most important of them all, the mental illness. The days of ‘psychiatry’ being a subject of mysteries are long over. Psychiatry which at one point used to be in the grip of rituals and black magic based on superstition has come to be known now as a subject with wide ranging branches such as psychology, neuroscience, biochemistry and molecular biology.
Recently, I came across a news item on a study conducted on the elderly population of two Southern States, one of them being Kerala. The statistics that the study threw up made disturbing reading. The percentage of people afflicted with lifestyle diseases, according to the study, has been quite high. Although the diseases under the study were not related to mental illness, I was wondering if not these diseases would one day lead the suffering people to lose their mental balance. The cost involved in the treatment alone would make one go crazy affecting their behavioral, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities. The experts would agree that in addition to genetic dispositions, environmental stressors trigger mental disorders.
I am not an authority on the subject and so I cannot go into the details of the problem. It is for the experts from diverse areas of psychiatry to interact, deliberate and come out with appropriate solutions to the problem of mental illnesses. But as a common man, it concerns me a lot – because of the cost and the loss of manpower involved. The challenges are even greater for a developing country like ours where economic and social changes are occurring at a rapid pace.
It is scary to know that as per W.H.O., mental illnesses are a major problem and out of 10 major illnesses ranked on the basis of disability-adjusted life years, five are mental illnesses. As I said earlier, from a child afflicted with a mental illness which may be genetic, to the middle-aged experiencing depression, to the elderly suffering from dementia, all lead to drain of money and manpower. As a country with an ever increasing population, mental illnesses are tend to grow and surely will be a major health issue in the times to come. While measures of governance may take care of creation of medical infrastructure, both in terms of allocation of sufficient budgets and creation of medical facilities and personnel, increase in research and development in the area of psychiatry is an important area that we all must pay special attention to.
I am sure the Conference of Indian Psychiatric Society will be a challenging platform for the experts in the field to go deeper into the mysterious field of psychiatry through knowledgeable interaction with one another. It is absolutely essential that Psychiatrics keep themselves abreast of the latest developments in their field as they emerge throughout the globe so that as we strive to become one of the tallest nations of the world, we do not create among us a population, young, middle and old, that are bruised and unattended to just because they have been the unintended victims of a fast pace of life.
The task is a sensitive and delicate one; but I am fully confident that organization of conferences such as this one will definitely help us understand the intricacies of psychiatry and come up with cost-effective medical solutions that can be applied for giving relief to the people of the country. I convey my congratulations to the organizers of the Conference and hope the Indian Psychiatric Society will, through their collective efforts, do all that they can in contributing in their own way to the well-being of the society. I have great pleasure in releasing the souvenir of the Indian Psychiatric Society on the occasion.
JAI HIND!
Shri Vayalar Ravi, Hon’ble Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs, Shri K. Babu, Hon’ble Minister for Excise and Ports, Government of Kerala, Dr. A.J. John, Chairperson, Organizing Committee, Dr. M. Thirunavukkarasu, the President of IPS, Dr. Kuruvilla Thomas, Organizing Secretary, Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, the incoming President of the IPS, Dr. Dinesh Bhugra, President-Elect, World Psychiatric Association, Dr. U.C. Garg, Honorary General Secretary of the IPS, friends from the media and ladies and gentlemen:
I am happy to be here amidst you at the 64th Annual National Conference of Indian Psychiatric Society in this beautiful city of Cochin which is hosting this Conference for the second time after 12 years. Shri Vayalar Ravi, my senior colleague, through his informative and educative inaugural address has brought to our attention the ills afflicting a society that is growing at a great speed but which also leaves back its trial of lifestyle deceases, the most important of them all, the mental illness. The days of ‘psychiatry’ being a subject of mysteries are long over. Psychiatry which at one point used to be in the grip of rituals and black magic based on superstition has come to be known now as a subject with wide ranging branches such as psychology, neuroscience, biochemistry and molecular biology.
Recently, I came across a news item on a study conducted on the elderly population of two Southern States, one of them being Kerala. The statistics that the study threw up made disturbing reading. The percentage of people afflicted with lifestyle diseases, according to the study, has been quite high. Although the diseases under the study were not related to mental illness, I was wondering if not these diseases would one day lead the suffering people to lose their mental balance. The cost involved in the treatment alone would make one go crazy affecting their behavioral, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities. The experts would agree that in addition to genetic dispositions, environmental stressors trigger mental disorders.
I am not an authority on the subject and so I cannot go into the details of the problem. It is for the experts from diverse areas of psychiatry to interact, deliberate and come out with appropriate solutions to the problem of mental illnesses. But as a common man, it concerns me a lot – because of the cost and the loss of manpower involved. The challenges are even greater for a developing country like ours where economic and social changes are occurring at a rapid pace.
It is scary to know that as per W.H.O., mental illnesses are a major problem and out of 10 major illnesses ranked on the basis of disability-adjusted life years, five are mental illnesses. As I said earlier, from a child afflicted with a mental illness which may be genetic, to the middle-aged experiencing depression, to the elderly suffering from dementia, all lead to drain of money and manpower. As a country with an ever increasing population, mental illnesses are tend to grow and surely will be a major health issue in the times to come. While measures of governance may take care of creation of medical infrastructure, both in terms of allocation of sufficient budgets and creation of medical facilities and personnel, increase in research and development in the area of psychiatry is an important area that we all must pay special attention to.
I am sure the Conference of Indian Psychiatric Society will be a challenging platform for the experts in the field to go deeper into the mysterious field of psychiatry through knowledgeable interaction with one another. It is absolutely essential that Psychiatrics keep themselves abreast of the latest developments in their field as they emerge throughout the globe so that as we strive to become one of the tallest nations of the world, we do not create among us a population, young, middle and old, that are bruised and unattended to just because they have been the unintended victims of a fast pace of life.
The task is a sensitive and delicate one; but I am fully confident that organization of conferences such as this one will definitely help us understand the intricacies of psychiatry and come up with cost-effective medical solutions that can be applied for giving relief to the people of the country. I convey my congratulations to the organizers of the Conference and hope the Indian Psychiatric Society will, through their collective efforts, do all that they can in contributing in their own way to the well-being of the society. I have great pleasure in releasing the souvenir of the Indian Psychiatric Society on the occasion.
JAI HIND!
