CNS: mental health

Showing posts with label mental health. Show all posts

[video] Youth-led initiatives give hope for holistic care and support for children and adolescents living with HIV

Beyond the shadow of stigma: Internal stigma is out of the shadows at AIDS 2024

"Stigma can be so insidious. It cuts deep and affects all of us," said Shaun Mellors, Director, Community Stakeholder Engagement, ViiV Healthcare who was speaking on Zero HIV Stigma Day during the opening plenary of LIVING2024. “Every day should be Zero HIV Stigma day,” rightly said Shaun.

Turning sunset years into gold

Shobha Shukla, CNS (Citizen News Service)

[Watch video interview] [Listen or download podcast] As soon as I set foot inside Care Resort Chiang Mai, for the elderly in northern Thailand, I was immediately struck by its spacious, sylvan and tranquil surroundings. Set in Maerim valley, 20 km away from the Lanna province of Chiang Mai, this retirement facility is owned and managed by 66 years old British businessman Peter Brown and his Thai wife. Opened in 2013, it won the Most Outstanding Care Resort of the world award in 2016. In an exclusive and candid interview with CNS (Citizen News Service), Peter narrated the incident that motivated him to open this care home for the elderly.

Diverse range of mental health needs need proper attention and care from healthcare providers if are to improve treatment outcomes for people with drug resistant forms of TB or people living with HIV (PLHIV). When treatments span over years or lifetime, and drugs used can be very toxic and may have serious side effects, mental health needs become even more acute. But despite guidelines for palliative care for patients with drug-resistant TB, we are not ‘walking the talk’ on the ground.

[Podcast] How can we generate stronger action against non-communicable diseases?

When living becomes a pain: MDR-TB

Dr Richa Sharma, CNS Correspondent, India

TB is an intimidating word in the world of public health. Even though the disease is centuries old, it was only in 1882 that Dr Robert Koch discovered the TB bacillus—the agent that causes TB. Antibiotics were used against TB for the first time in 1944 after the discovery of streptomycin. But use of this drug alone led to antibiotic resistance that is still a major problem.

Connecting the dots: Mental health and tuberculosis

Alice Tembe, CNS Special Correspondent, Swaziland

Dr Annika Sweetland

As I get totally swathed by the very inspiring and tiring 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health, a serious thought that came to my mind was the connect between mental health and TB. This was a question also posed by Dr Annika Sweetland, a Research Scientist in the Department of Psychology from Columbia University, also tried to answer a similar question in one of the sessions: Does TB predispose patients to mental health disorders, and, are mental health disorders a risk factor to developing active TB?

Whither sexual and reproductive health services for marginalized groups

Avantika Chaturvedi, CNS Correspondent, India

Photo credit: CNS: citizen-news.org

Sex is still a taboo word in Indian society and that is why the sexual health of the individual is ignored even in the normal population. When mainstream society is largely unaware about its sexual and reproductive health (SRH), then one shudders to think of the situation in the marginalized populations of sex workers, injecting drug users (IDUs), men who have sex with men (MSM), and transgenders (TG). Amongst these, MSMs and TGs are more disadvantaged in accessing SRH services because of their different sexual orientation.

Differently right

Avantika Chaturvedi, CNS Correspondent, India

Photo credit: CNS

Being different does not mean one is wrong, it simply means one is different from the rest of the crowd. But our society works on the principle of coloring everyone with the same color and dissolving one’s unique identity. The question arises, what if one does not want to do so? Well, then the person is labeled as a social outcast. Men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender populations have been the victims of this ostracization for many years, because our society has failed to accept these differently right people as part of our society. This population has been treated as public outcasts and has become the target of social humiliation, verbal and physical assault, preventing them from accessing basic health services, and leaving them in a state of prostration.

'My top priority would be for ensuring evidence informs health policy', says new ICMR head

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

Dr Soumya Swaminathan
Photo credit: CNS/ 2014

Dr Soumya Swaminathan has recently been appointed as Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Secretary of Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Earlier she has served as Director, National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis in Chennai from 2008 till 2015.

Two days ago she spoke with Citizen News Service (CNS) about her priorities for accelerating progress towards a TB free India, as well as in the field of medical research.

World Health Day: No substitute to healthy mind

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS

Image credit: CNS: citizen-news.org

We all aspire to be healthy and at times go to great lengths to ward off sickness. The fight against disease begins early on in life with responsible parents ensuring that their kids are administered all available vaccinations ((although there is a small lobby that is against this important preventive measure); as much as possible; they feed them nutritious diet (facing stiff competition from fast food chain offerings) and there is a growing consciousness about the benefits of physical exercise too (despite the allure of the idiot box and the computer).

Evidence shows we can prevent obesity in children: E Waters, Anne Anderson Awardee 2014

Shobha Shukla and Bobby Ramakant, CNS

Prof Elizabeth Waters
Anne Anderson Awardee 2014

Researchers have demonstrated that childhood obesity prevention programmes have a positive health impact on body mass index (BMI - a measure of body fat based upon height and weight). So policies and practices should take this evidence into consideration to nip alarming rates of childhood obesity. Professor Elizabeth Waters, Jack Brockhoff Chair of Public Health in University of Melbourne, did this game-changing systematic review on childhood obesity prevention with her colleagues, which is the most downloaded review in The Cochrane Library. Prof Waters was also awarded the prestigious Anne Anderson Award for 2014 at 22nd Cochrane Colloquium in Hyderabad, India.

October 9, 2012—Just one day before this year's World Menatl Health Day, 56 year old Varsha Bhosle, a political columnist and journalist and singer Asha Bhosle's daughter, shoots herself to death in her flat in Mumbai. She had reportedly made two suicide attempts in the past and was currently undergoing treatment for depression. Incidentally, the latest figures peg India's suicide rate the second highest in the world with 187,000 suicides taking place in 2010.

October, 2012--In Bhopal a 13 year old boy hangs himself to death after a minor squabble with his younger brother over watching a particular cartoon channel on TV. August, 2012-- A 13 year old son of a roadside stall owner in Nagpur commits suicide by hanging from the ceiling fan with his mother’s dupatta, after being scolded by her for neglecting his studies.

Imagine a life confined to imprisonment for years and sometimes a life time in that predicament. A person is removed from society, cut off from family and friends and turns into a lonely soul made into a convict to repent for his actions. The very thought conjures up images of sad people living aimlessly within the four walls of the prison they are housed in. With no hope of respite from boredom, loneliness and guilt, and in absence of a support or care system, their situation is indeed worrisome.

World Mental Health Day: 10 October
Buddha looked at the water and then he looked up at the disciple and said,"See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be, and the mud settled down on its own - and you have clear water. Your mind is like that too! When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time.... it will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless."

In the lead up to the 10th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (10th ICAAP), an issue-focussed and time-limited online consultation was facilitated on the issue: key affected women and girls, on SEA-AIDS by the Asia Pacific Alliance for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (APA) and Citizen News Service (CNS) during 1-20 August 2011 [The summary report of this online consultation is online here. It will be released at the Women Community Forum of 10th ICAAP too on 25th August 2011].

The high level UN Summit on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs), due to be held in September 2011 in New York, is the second such High Level Meet (HLM) on a global health issue—the first one held 10 years ago was on HIV/AIDS. The outcome of this meeting is expected to create the political momentum to galvanize funds and commitments for prevention and treatment interventions in resource poor settings in developing countries, where morbidity and mortality due to NCDs is increasing rapidly.

Kudos to the nineteen parents of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, who recently came together in the Supreme Court, to stop the State from criminalising their children. They have joined hands to fight in courts a "sustained attack" by organisations and private persons who insist that their children’s sexuality, if not criminalised, would destroy "family values". Lending them support is film director Shyam Benegal, pitching in as intervener in the Supreme Court in the battle to sustain the 2009 Delhi High Court verdict decriminalising sex between consenting adults of the same sex.

Although far from optimal, still considerable progress has been made in providing healthcare to transgender people in many parts of the world. Yet their mental health needs remain far from being served. "Mental healthcare problems are so severe and far from easy to overcome. I've spent seven years with therapists and doctors and even after that I've attempted suicide 5 times (4 weeks since last attempt)" said Svanhvit on Reddit.com in response to a CNS article "Mental health of MSM and transgender on blind spot."