Psychiatric Care for mental wellness of inmates starts in Choudwar Jail

A team of psychiatrists visited 85 patients in Choudwar Circle jail to evaluate their mental wellness and provide Psychiatric care to them.

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Cuttack: The Odisha Prisons Directorate under the State Home Department has commenced the mental wellness initiative of jail inmates on Wednesday. A team of psychiatrists visited 85 patients in Choudwar Circle jail here to evaluate their mental wellness and provide care to them under the directive of Odisha Prisons Directorate.

The department has hired a total of 27 psychiatrists including mental health, social workers and clinical psychologists, to evaluate and provide mental care to all the psychiatric patients in the jails of Odisha under the initiative. The psychiatrists will officially start visiting all the jails of the state starting from May 1.

The team of psychiatrists visited the Choudwar Circle jail during the induction programme today, informed the Prisons DG, Manoj Kumar Chhabra.

He further said that mental health is a serious problem in Odisha, particularly after Covid. We have a big number of psychiatric patients in our jails. But a very few number of mental healthcare professionals were there to tend to them.

It is hoped that this initiative will help take care of the mental health of the prisoners and they will lead a healthy and dignified life inside the prisons, he added.

According to reports, Odisha along with Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of  Psychiatrist prisoners in its jails. Around 800 such prisoners are being held in 87 jails across Odisha. Among them, Malkangiri jail tops the list for housing the maximum number of mentally ill prisoners. Following Malkangiri are Koraput and Jeypore are in second and third spot respectively.

Similarly, according to the information shared by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there were 626 mentally ill prisoners in Odisha. In 2020, the number rose to 696. In 2021, the number increased further to 699.

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