New mental health hospital to come up in Kolhapur with hi-tech facilities

Mumbai: Maharashtra is all set to welcome its fifth regional mental health hospital, a 365-bedded hospital with cutting-edge technology after almost 100 years. This will be the first one to be built in the post-Indian independence era.

Currently, Maharashtra has four regional mental health hospitals in Pune, Thane, Nagpur and Ratnagiri. The new hospital will come up in Kolhapur’s Shirol, nearly 400 km away from Mumbai. The state health authority intends to bring this new hospital up to the standards of Bangalore's NIMHANS, a renowned government centre for mental health and neurosciences, in order to give patients cutting-edge care.

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After the initial permission, the public health department will now submit a proposal to seek financial approval. With an estimated population of over 12 crores, more than 2.2 lakh people a year seek treatment for mental health issues in the OPD. According to data provided by the public health department, 13,000 patients with serious mental health conditions need to be admitted each year. “Incidences of mental health are increasing globally. The COVID-19 pandemic further aggravated the situation,” said Dr Lale. 

The public health department finally gave the nod last week for the establishment of a high-tech advanced mental health hospital in Shirol which is 7 km away from Sangli district and 30 km from Kolhapur main city. Dr Swapnil Lale, Additional Director of Health Service, Maharashtra, informed The Indian Express, "Some patients who suffer from psychosis, bipolar mood disorder or have suicidal tendencies require admissions and special care by experts. And the process of recovery takes days, so we are trying to increase the number of hospitals for a more holistic approach."

The hospital will have provisions to carry out such psychosurgeries which often become necessary on rare occasions to treat severe mental health problems. Patients suffering from vascular, epilepsy, peripheral nerves among others will be benefited from the new facility. Neurosurgeons will be appointed for such procedures. This will be the first-of-its-kind such advanced mental health hospital in Maharashtra. Dr Lale informed the Daily, “These surgeries are new treatment avenues which consist of stereotactic operations on the brain aimed at altering abnormal physiology. It is widely used to alleviate symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in patients who do not respond to therapy.”

The department also plans to establish research facilities like the Genetic Laboratory to aid in initiatives involving genetic diagnosis of neuropsychiatric illnesses. The most cutting-edge surgical tools, including intraoperative CT and ultrasound, are available in the operating rooms. The 6,000 government-run hospital beds now available are insufficient to deliver enough high-quality healthcare. These hospitals are also heavily burdened with abandoned patients, some of whom need to stay for over 20 years, reports the daily. 

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“The Nagpur Division is in the central region of India, so we get patients from other states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, among others,” said a doctor from Nagpur regional mental health hospital which annually records over 1,400 admissions. The oldest mental facility with a 940-beds, Nagpur's regional mental health hospital was established in 1,884. After 31 years the latest hospital was constructed in Pune in 1915 with over 2,000 bed capacities yet in the last 108 years, the state has been struggling to cater to the needs of mental patients. The new mental facility is going to be a boon for the state in handling mental patients.