Concerned over the paucity of qualified and trained neuro-psychiatry personnel in the country, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) has teamed up with international universities to train and generate access to medical professionals specializing in neuro psychiatry.

NIMHANS has gone on to start the dual PhD programmes in psychiatry rehabilitation and neuro critical care with the University of Liverpool in the UK and the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University in Netherlands.

Under the arrangement with the two leading global universities, NIMHANS has undertaken an education exchange programme where one student from India and one each from the University of Liverpool and the Maastricht University will be selected to study. The move will help the students comprehend the developments in psychiatry rehabilitation and neuro critical care which is seen to be the future areas of focus for any healthcare provider including NIMHANS, Dr. P Satishchandra, director, NIMHANS, told Pharmabiz in an interaction.

This is also an attractive proposition for the students under the exchange programme because they will be exposed to the nuances in anxiety disorders, addiction and research into psychiatry in both UK and Netherlands. University of Liverpool will focus on neuro infections and from NIMHANS we would like to share our expertise in drug and alcoholic addition. These are two prestigious locations of neuropsychiatry in the European Union, he added.

The mandate of NIMHANS is to catalyse, facilitate capacity building and strengthen the human resources development in different healthcare delivery systems. The thrust areas of research for the Institute are molecular and sub-cellular mechanisms for mental disease processes, link clinical status with structural, biochemical and immunological and serological abnormalities to arrive at diagnostic biomarker. Further, the intent is also to explore the genetic basis of the disease, said Dr. Satishchandra.

Going by the rise in accident-trauma and ageing population, neuro critical care is gaining ground. Currently, there are significant differences in the availability of critical care experts to handle serious conditions and extend the post operative support which is now supervised by neuro anesthetist.

As a deemed university, NIMHANS is offering two seats for post doctoral fellowships in neurology, neuro surgery and neuro anesthesia supported by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). It is also training its nursing, psycho-social teams.  From this academic year, it will offer for the  first time a  disaster management course  with 8 seats of which four are sponsored. There is need for a great deal of psycho social care and the National Disaster Management Authority has been looking to source qualified personnel from NIMHANS to provide support to the displaced of both manmade and natural calamities because its personnel were sent to extend the moral support during the Tsunami in Japan and Uttarakhand flash floods.