Analyzing Indian mental health systems: Reflecting, learning, and working towards a better future

Abstract

Mental health has been long neglected. Even though it causes substantial loss of disability-adjusted life years, it does not receive proportionate funding. India spends <2% of its annual health budget on mental health. India has been witnessing a great push for mental health. A number of policy-level reforms have been undertaken, and efforts are on to tackle this issue in a better way. In this study, we have reviewed various factors contributing towards policy, implementation, and utilization gaps based on published studies and Mental Health Survey reports and suggested ways to address these. Bottleneck analysis reveals that interventions to improve mental health scenario extend beyond the ambit of the National Mental Health Policy and requires strong policy negotiations and reforms to resuscitate the dying public health-care system of India.

Keywords

• Bottleneck analysis
• health systems strengthening
• mental health
• patient care pathway