Help mentally ill patients get access to healthcare

60 Million Indians suffer from mental illness. 130,000 Indians commit suicide every year. 1 in 3 homeless individuals suffer from a mental illness. Clearly, poor mental health is a growing public health concern that affects multiple domains of a person’s life: their relationships with family, friends, colleagues, productivity, physical health outcomes & of course -- their own personal satisfaction and happiness.

Many of us remain in our comfortable bubbles of privilege, not realising that 1 in 5 Indians live below the poverty line, and that just as easily could have been us. Adverse experiences with caste and gender based violence, lack of access to education, shelter and food directly affect an individual’s personal and a community’s collective mental health.

Common mental disorders are almost twice as frequent in those living in states of poverty & schizophrenia is 8 times more prevalent in those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

It is no wonder that good health and well being is one of the main sustainable development goals put forth by the UN. Higher levels of stress and isolation, due in part to exponential advancements in technology and unconstrained population growth, has made mental health everyone’s business. It is a problem that needs to be addressed with no further delay.

 

The Banyan has developed a variety of holistic mental health solutions that address multifaceted components of distress that those with mental health issues face. We aim to create replicable & sustainable models of care that address the interconnected elements of mental ill health. This includes, emergency and acute medical, psychiatric, psychological and social care offered through our street based services, hospital settings, shelter based services, community based outpatient care and inclusive long term care options for persons with high support needs.

We take service user feedback extremely seriously and all of our programmes and co-created and audited by the people who use them.

We approach mental health through the wellbeing and development paradigm, rather than through an illness framework, and seek to ensure an improvement in overall quality of life, for individuals experiencing psychosocial distress.

We believe that every individual deserves the right to a dignified and meaningful life, with the opportunity to be aspirational and reach their fullest potential, regardless of the social and structural barriers that have caused them to be left behind and forgotten.

 

1) Benchmark The Banyan as offering usercentric, human rights promotive, comprehensive care services for the most marginalized and vulnerable populations, including persons poor and homeless

2) Increased access to mental health care through a network of collaborating stakeholders, to foster improved client mental health outcomes.

3) Creating low cost collaborative care delivered by wellness mobilizers, and promoting cost effective and resource efficient care models.

4) Creating pathways for community inclusion for people in institutional spaces

5) New contributions to implementation science and evidence in the mental health sector emerging from a LMIC context, and to influence on policy level in uptake of recommendations based on approaches developed that address the mental ill health – poverty– homelessness nexus.