Health perspectives: What's driving Young Indian Doctors to the edge of mental illness?

Mental illness doesn't just affect the common people but health workers too. According to a recent study, India produces more than 18 thousand doctors annually and has the largest population of doctors at around 1 million. However, between 2015 and 2019, the data indicates that 430 doctors died by suicide, making doctors the profession marred. Mental issues amongst Indian medicos is 2-3 times higher than any other profession!

If we want to understand the cause of this problem, then we need to know that the challenging work conditions have increased the likelihood of mental health issues in health professionals, including stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, and suicide ideation. Even before the pandemic, the working circumstances for health professionals were difficult, and the rate of poor mental health outcomes was high. Intense physical and mental labor, exposure to human suffering and death, a greater risk of contracting disease and experiencing violence, a lack of staff, and a lack of personal protective equipment are some of these.

Joining us in Today's Episode of Health Perspective is Dr. Nimesh G Desai a Director at the Institute of Human Behaviour & Allied Sciences (IHBAS), Delhi, India, and Dr. Chinmayee, an MBBS student at Sri Lakshmi Narayana Medical College in Pondicherry, is a first-year PG resident in OBG.