Psychiatry is a field of Medicine which deals with the diagnosis, treatment and
prevention of mental, emotional and behavioural disorders. It is concerned with
the disorders of a person’s mental life and behaviour. It integrates biological,
social and psychological aspects of mental health to provide holistic medical care
for a wide range of symptoms. It is increasingly clear in today’s world that disorders
of mental health are becoming more significant and represent significant personal
and social costs to the community. There is a disturbing increase in the number
of persons with mental health problems in the community. Psychiatry has rapidly
grown to a major medical speciality. It has made rapid strides to become one of
the most researched scientific branches of Medicine and have become available to
a large number of people. The department has liaison with various clinical departments
in the hospital including General Medicine, Neurology, Obstetrics and Gynaecology,
Surgery and Child Health. In the future the field of mental health will be one of
the most exciting areas of great interest and rapid growth.
The department treats people with mental health problems. Some of the problems treated here are:
- Anxiety- feeling restless, Tense, worried, disturbed sleep etc.
- Depression (being very sad so people cannot work, are tearful, do not eat properly etc),
- Somatic symptom disorder- multiple bodily symptoms but normal medical reports
- Schizophrenia (often seeing or hearing things that are not real and behaving very strangely)
- Manic-depression (go from very very happy to very very sad)
- Obsessive-compulsive behaviour (doing things again and again even though they do not need doing eg cleaning hands 20 times even when they are clean)
- Phobias – being very afraid of things when they are not dangerous
- Addiction problems are treated eg Tobacco, Alcohol and other drug addiction
- Emotional problems
- Neurological problems- epilepsy, memory loss
- Marital problems
- Psycho-Sexual problems- Erectile dysfunction, early ejaculation, Dhat syndrome ect.
Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
There is a special unit for children and adolescents (children up to 18yrs old,
adolescents are the older children aged 10-18yrs) deals with- poor school performance,
hyperactivity, bed wetting, behavioural problems, difficult child ect.
Geriatric Psychiatry
Deals with- Old age problems like memory loss, lonliness, behavioural disorders
ect.
Clinical services
The outpatient department receives patients from all walks of life, with problems
that range from minor mental disturbances to major disorders. Faculty members actively
provide child guidance as well as suicide prevention services and consultation.
The department also has inpatient facilities with 8 beds. Special care is taken
for addiction cases and motivational counselling.
The Department is equipped with-
- Portable Computerised EEG
- ECT
- EMG