Bengaluru: Dr YC Janardhan Reddy, who took charge as interim director of National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (Nimhans) on Sept 1, spoke to TOI about the institute’s growing patient load, plans to improve access to care and the challenges posed by its highly centralised model. He outlined why expanding Nimhans alone may not be enough to address the pressure on its services, and spoke about the role of technology, including AI, in the future of mental healthcare. Excerpts:
Because mental illness and its cultural context are very different, these programmes can benefit patients, but they have to be indigenous. Patients often complain about long waiting times at Nimhans OPD, while there are also concerns about ventilator availability in casualty. OPD queues reportedly begin as early as 4am. Why does this happen? A tertiary institute like Nimhans should cater to a certain kind of patient population. But people from all over the country come here for everything — from a simple headache to the most severe problems. We are also trying to reduce waiting times and streamline services, but the sheer number of patients is huge. No hospital can cater to such demand beyond a point. Another reason for the demand is that people, during emergencies, go to corporate hospitals and within two days realise they cannot afford the treatment and want to shift here. AI is a very broad term. There are many programmes where we are using digital technologies, including Tele-MANAS and other such programmes. There are also research applications where machine learning and other techniques can be used. Right now, a lot of AI in psychiatry is at the research level, trying to understand the biological correlates of illness. There are also people working on developing apps for cognitive training, self-help, depression and so on. Many faculty members have developed apps and are trying to test them. In the larger world, there are many internet-based cognitive behavioural therapies that can be used for people with mild to moderate illness. Some have no therapist intervention and are entirely programmed, while others have periodic professional inputs. For that matter, in most of medicine, I think AI is going to be complementary. It is unlikely to replace the human component. Ultimately, it is as good as the data you feed into it. That’s how it is trained.