Keralam Begins A New Chapter In Mental Healthcare, Renames Mental Hospitals As Happiness And Wellness Centres

The days of calling them mental hospitals are over, with Keralam set to give its government-run mental health centres a new identity and a new approach to mental healthcare. The centres in Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, and Kozhikode will now be known as Happiness And Wellness Centres. The government plans to improve their physical facilities, create a better environment and provide the staff needed to transform the institutions.

The move comes soon after the Kerala High Court took a serious view of the conditions at the three centres. A division bench of Justices Devan Ramachandran and Basant Balaji had personally visited the institutions and later pulled up the government for failing to fully implement its earlier directions to improve the facilities. During its inspection, the court had raised serious concerns about the conditions at the centres. It described one of them as “horror places” and also questioned the secrecy surrounding such institutions.

The court's intervention has now given a fresh push to the government's plans to change the way mental healthcare is delivered. Health Minister K. Muraleedharan on Wednesday said the first step would be to change the name of the institutions and the government intends the change to go beyond the signboards. The idea is to move away from a system that is largely associated with diagnosis, medication, and treatment after a person develops a serious mental illness.

The proposed centres are expected to focus also on prevention and emotional well-being. They could offer counselling, mental health awareness programmes, stress management and lifestyle interventions. This could make a difference to people who hesitate to seek help because of the stigma attached to mental illness.

For many, the words mental hospital itself can be frightening. A more welcoming identity could encourage people to seek help at an earlier stage. The wider objective is to make mental healthcare less intimidating and more accessible. Muraleedharan said the government's decisions in the health sector were being taken after directly assessing people's difficulties and the condition of hospitals. After 100 days in office, the government says its focus is on repairing a health system it inherited in a badly damaged state.

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