Need to make sure that COVID-19 patients don't feel alone: Psychiatrist

Himika Agarwal, a Ghaziabad-based psychiatrist, pointed out that mental health is an extremely important issue during the pandemic, as many people are at the risk of depression and anxiety due to the stigma associated with COVID-19. She stressed that patients should not be made to feel alone in these harsh times.

Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh):The recent death of a COVID-19 patient in Ghaziabad is the latest in a spate of such suicides in India.

ETV Bharat spoke to Ghaziabad-based psychiatrist, Himika Agarwal, to understand the reason behind rising mental health issues during COVID-19 times, and the way forward.

She said that the first step is to identify that mental health is a problem, spread awareness about it, and then work towards finding solutions.

"It is unfortunate that we are losing many young people to coronavirus related anxieties. However, this pattern is not just limited to coronavirus, but also to HIV," she said.

Agarwal explained that anxiety levels are incredibly high in a person on testing positive for HIV.

"For HIV, pre-testing counselling is a must. Just like in the case of coronavirus, there is a lot of stigma attached with HIV. Counsellors explain to the patients both scenarios - either they test negative or positive."

Agarwal said this is extremely important to prevent patients from resorting to the extreme step due to depression, anxiety, or fear.

She explained that in the same way, people are scared of contracting coronavirus just because of the stigma attached to it.

Read:How to counter mental health issues during lockdown

"People think they will be far from the rest of the society. They fear that people might start running away from them and their family if tested positive," she said.

"Because many people perceive things the wrong way, they resort to extreme steps," she added.

Hence it is extremely important to make COVID-19 patients not feel alone to prevent such suicides, Agarwal explained, adding that patients should be treated with kindness and not stigma.

"We need to make sure that COVID-19 patients do not feel alone. We need to spread positive messages - be it through social media or mainstream media," she said.

However, Agarwal pointed out that there was no single reason for suicide, and individualisation of cases and their problems was the need of the hour.

"One person might be able to cope with, one might go into depression, while a third might even attempt suicide. There is a need for individualisation. One must immediately reach out and get clinical help if a person shows any signs of going into depression," she said.

Read:COVID-19: Psychologist explains reasons for mental stress and ways to deal with it