National Tele Mental Health Program (Tele MANAS) - An Initial Overview

ABSTRACT

Background (Dr Rahul Patley, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry- Goldman Sachs project, NIMHANS) The Government of India announced the National Tele Mental Health Programme (Tele MANAS) in the Union Budget in February 2022 to handle the aftermath of mental health issues arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was launched on 10 Oct 2022 on World Mental Health Day as a 24X7 two-tier tele-mental health facility across India. Functioning of Tele Manas (Dr. Suchandra H H Assistant Professor of Psychiatry - Tele MANAS, NIMHANS & Dr C Naveen Kumar, Professor of Psychiatry, Principal Investigator of Tele MANAS, NIMHANS) A total of 51 Tele MANAS cells will be established across India to provide a broader range of mental health services (counselling, consultations, e-prescriptions, follow-ups, and linkages to in-person services) by various mental health specialists with five Regional Coordinating centres and 23 Mentoring Institutes. The NIMHANS function as the apex centre, NHSRC for resource mapping, and IIIT-B for technological support. Each Tele MANAS cell shall provide online services to callers through a trained counsellor and escalates to a mental health professional when needed. It also offers a linking service for inperson referrals to existing mental health resources. The curriculum of Tele MANAS (Dr Madhuri H Nanjundaswamy Assistant Professor of Psychiatry - Tele MANAS, NIMHANS & Dr Suresh Bada Math, Professor of Psychiatry, NIMHANS) The content of the curriculum includes components of training, manual preparation and accreditation courses for Tele MANAS Counsellors. The first edition of manuals were prepared and recently released by MoHFW. The training will be conducted in hybrid mode with both on-site and online components for Tele MANAS Counsellors. A selflearning module for counsellors is also planned. The concept of mental health in Tele MANAS (Dr Nileswar Das, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry- Goldman Sachs project, NIMHANS and Dr N Manjunatha, Additional Professor of Psychiatry, NIMHANS) Mental health in Tele MANAS is a spectrum concept that ranges from mental wellness to mental distress to mental illness. COVID-19 has increased mental distress exponentially compared to mental illness, emphasizing the need to focus on distress.