Tamil Nadu Launches Internet de-addiction clinics in Government Medical Colleges

This initiative was launched by the State Health Minister Ma Subramanian at the Omandurar Government Medical College Hospital on Monday, reports Indian Express.

The Government had promised of such an initiative a couple of months ago in the Assembly.

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As per the latest media report by the Times of India, while launching this programme on Monday, the Health Minister referred to the fact that more and more people, especially the young, are displaying signs of compulsive use of smartphones and they prefer gadgets a lot more than the company of other people.

Since 2001, the Internet usage has increased by around thousand folds- resulting in a situation where around 6% of the population is suffering from several addictions including gaming disorder, online gambling addiction, and online porn addiction.

While commenting on the matter, the Health Minister said, "They know the consequences of this, but they are unable to resist the use of the internet. Some even show signs of withdrawal symptoms just like in the case of drug addiction.'

"Excessive use of smartphones, fuelled by prolonged lockdowns, has affected people's physical and mental health," the Health Minister was quoted saying by Indian Express.

At these Internet de-addiction clinics, psychiatrists and nurses would assess the addiction levels and offer therapy and rehabilitation measures. Apart from this, special counselling would be provided to help reducing the usages of smart phone among children.

The Health Minister assured that very soon these initiatives would be extended to all the government medical colleges in the state.

Apart from the Internet de-addiction clinics, the State Health Minister also launched a cognitive rehabilitation daycare center for dealing with elderly patients suffering from memory-related ailments and a clinic for post-natal depression counselling.

As per the plan, all the medical college hospitals across Tamil Nadu would keep 10 beds reserved for these clinics, where apart from therapy patients would be engaged in games such as carom and traditional games such as snakes and ladders and "pallankuzhi".

"Nearly 22% of new mothers suffer from depression. This leads to multiple health issues in mother and child, besides family problems," added the Health Minister.

On the other hand, doctors would provide counselling to new mothers on personal health, child health, nutrition and healthy living. Besides, the newborns would be screened for hearing problems.