Mumbai : In the wake of a suicide attempt of a resident doctor in KEM Hospital, city psychiatrists urge the civic body to start counseling units for doctors in all the civic hospitals which can identify and focus on the high-risk group, provide necessary counseling and stress management therapy. They add that considering the huge load of patients that the resident doctors attend to in a civic hospital, one-on-one counseling session will help to address doctors’ issues and reduce their stress-levels.
City psychiatrists state that every individual is different and so is their tolerance level of handling work-pressure and stress. Shedding more light on the issue, Dr Yusuf Matscheswalla, a city-based psychiatrist, said, “Doctors are usually trained to work for day and night during their MBBS degree but there are few doctors who cannot take in the stress. Also, other factors such as less sleep, poor working conditions in the hospital aggravate their state which increases their stress-levels. Therefore, it is crucial that all the resident doctors are counseled, made to fill up a questionnaire to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Following this, the counselors can screen out the weak ones and provide intense therapy, counseling and treatment.”
Another city-based psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty said, “Civic body should come up with counseling units in all civic hospitals and should be encouraged to talk about issues that are concerning them. Also, a thought should be given on hiring more resident doctors which will reduce the load and provide better facilities to the patients.”
Central Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) president Dr Sagar Mundada, said, “Counseling sessions will definitely help to ease the stress levels of doctors because with each passing day the stress level is reaching mountain-high.”
Despite repeated attempts to reach additional municipal commissioner Sanjay Deshmukh, he remained unavailable for comment on this issue.
Manasi Tahalani
