Ma Su inaugurates second Tele-Manas helpline center at IMH in Kilpauk

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian inaugurated the second center of the 14416 Tele-Manas mental health helpline at the Institute of Mental Health in Kilpauk on Tuesday.

As many as 40,000 people have benefited from the Tele-Manas helpline since its commencement in October 2022, which comprises about 70 percent of the people from the age group of 18-40 years.

Health Minister Ma Subramanian said that the helpline has been mainly used by youngsters mainly and depression, anxiety, relationship issues, and others have been some of the common issues being brought up by them.

"Tamil Nadu has seen a higher use of the nationwide Tele-Manas helpline compared to other States and the Union Health Ministry has appreciated the government for the same. In the second phase, the center has been set up at the Institute of Mental Health, which will include a team of 25 psychologists and psychiatrists, 18 postgraduate students, 54 psychology postgraduates, 3 psychiatrists, and 10 psychiatry postgraduates. The experts will be catering to the needs of those impacted with mental health issues," he said.

Recently, DT Next had pointed out in a news report that the Tele-Manas helpline has been incurring network issues and a shortage of staff as many calls get missed.

An official from the helpline stated that measures have been taken to appoint additional staff and the second center is likely to assist in attending to the maximum number of people in need of mental health support.

Talking about the measures undertaken to bring down the number of suicides in the State, the Health Minister said that the NEET aspirants, school students appearing for the board examination, medical students at the government medical college and hospitals have been provided counselling to attend to any distress at an earlier stage.

"The State has also banned the sale of rat poison," said the Minister.