Mental Health & Wellness Centre vs Mental Hospital in Mumbai

If you or a loved one is dealing with mental health problems, you want to get the best treatment you can. You are likely to be aware of at least one mental hospital in Mumbai. But will this place be able to give you the support you need?

In this blog we take a look at mental hospitals in Mumbai, why they are usually unsuitable for mental health care, and offer you an alternative. If you’d like more information on the issues raised here, do not hesitate to contact Samarpan Health.

Mental Hospitals in Mumbai and India

While mental health hospitals have changed dramatically in the past few decades, mental health hospitals in Mumbai and India as a whole are unfortunately lagging far behind. Patients often go there because there is nowhere else that they can go. And admissions are usually conducted on a non-voluntary basis, meaning that patients may remain there for several years before they are released.

During this time, it is unlikely that they will receive any real treatment for their mental health problems. It is common for places like these to merely treat their patients with psychiatric medications without any consideration of treatment for their issues.

Doctors may use high doses so that patients spend much of their time inebriated and are unable to have anything that may be regarded as a proper life. Taken regularly for a long period of time, some of these psychiatric medicines may have long-lasting side-effects for patients.

While some staff at mental hospitals in India are well-trained and have decided that they want to work in one of these hospitals as they wish to genuinely benefit the patients there, many staff are under-trained and have very little understanding of what modern mental health treatment involves.

Patients may be kept confined to their rooms if it is deemed that they are unsuitable to be in the general population of the mental hospital.

The only advantage of these places is that they are government-run, and as such require no fees.

Mental Health/Wellness Centres

The story at the best mental health facilities in India is fortunately very different to that at mental hospitals. These modern centres use evidence-based approaches to treat a range of mental health problems. The most common therapies are cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy, though some centres use others.

Staff at these centres go through years of training to be able to effectively diagnose and treat mental unwellness, and have generally had several more years of practice. This combination creates psychiatrists and counselors who have a deep understanding of what can go wrong in the mind of a person, and how these problems can be addressed.

Facilities tend to be lightyears ahead of those at mental hospitals. Private rooms, double beds, good food and pleasant surroundings are all provided, based on the understanding that mental health recovery and wellness flourish in these kinds of environments.

Medication is provided in the appropriate doses, if it is required. This medication will be evaluated on a regular basis to determine whether it is still necessary.

What is the biggest mental hospital in India?

The biggest mental hospital in India is Yerwada Mental Hospital, located not far from Pune. This hospital has 1590 patients and is considered one of the biggest mental hospitals in Asia.

Yerwada has been blighted by various accusations and scandals over the past couple of decades. These accusations include articles published in India newspaper publications which found that officials at the hospital had been involved in the bribery of officials involving fitness certificates, that the quality of care received at the hospital was poor, that severe mental illness was common among long-term staff, and that a female patient had been raped by hospital staff.

Similar allegations have been told about similar institutions across India, including frequent concerns that patients in some of these places were being detained illegally, as they were considered “cured” but were still told that they were unable to leave.

Unfortunately, cases like these are bound to continue in India until significant reform of mental care in the public sector occurs.

What are the 10 biggest mental hospitals in India?

These mental hospitals are those that can admit the most patients at one time of any mental hospital in India:

• Mental Health Institute, Chandigarh
• National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru
• Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi
• Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Delhi
• Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi Regional Institute of Mental Health, Tezpur
• JIPMER (Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research), Puducherry
• RINPAS (Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences), Agra
• Kasturba Hospital for Mental Illness, Mumbai
• Christian Medical College Vellore, Vellore
• NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences), Bengaluru.

Samarpan Mental Health and Wellness Centre

By reading this blog, you have likely come to the conclusion that a mental hospital in Mumbai is not somewhere that you wish to go, or that you would want to send a loved one to. Your best option for mental health care, then, is a mental health centre.

At Samarpan Health, we believe that we offer some of the best mental health care in the country. All the elements you would expect of an absolutely first-rate institution are on offer. Our facilities are designed for comfort, all our staff are professionally trained and care deeply about the patients that they look after, and we follow evidence-based treatment methods.

All this means that we are confident that we can treat any mental illness, and do so in an environment that is as pleasant as possible. If you would like more information on what we do at Samarpan Health, or would like to arrange a viewing, please contact us today.