With the ever-changing dimensions of mental health treatment and the need felt to attend to two virus outbreaks (Hepatitis B and H1N1), the government is now planning to set premier institutes for virology and mental health in the state.

Both the centres of excellence will be developed as autonomous institutes on the lines of National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore.

The state Health Department hit upon the idea of setting up an institute of virology to segregate virology as a separate field of study from microbiology. Presently, the National Institute of Virology, Pune is the only institute in the country which is designated as the World Health Organisation (WHO) H5 reference laboratory for the entire South-East Asia region. Gujarat has currently four government mental hospitals.

State Health Minister Jay Narayan Vyas said: “Both the centres of excellence will be autonomous institutes and funded primarily by the state government. The setting up of the Institute of Virology is at a planning stage and requires some fine-tuning while the Institute of

Mental Health and Well Being will be coming up in either Ahmedabad or Surat very soon. The Institute of Mental Health is based on the public-private partnership model and we already have an offer covering a substantial amount of the investment.”

With 80 per cent of services being provided by individual psychiatrists and the government set up not having more than 300 psychiatrists, the sector has remained a grey area till now and does not cater to the need fully.

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