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Teaching Children about Personal Space
The nature and the unpredictability of the second wave of covid was something no one thought of. People witnessed the worst crisis in terms of the number of deaths, number of children who got orphaned, the crisis of oxygen cylinder, and shortage of ICU beds, etc. The health support system was overburdened. The situation was even worse in rural areas where primary health care was not strong enough.
The second wave of Covid-19 also brought a lot of tensions, stress, anxiety, depression, and a situation of hopelessness. It won’t be wrong to state that News Channels and Social Media exacerbated such issues by exaggerating the plight of patients and the situation of the country. Everywhere, there was an atmosphere of fear and gloominess. Fear of getting infected, of getting hospitalized, fear of getting bed and oxygen in hospital, fear of bills of treatment, fear of losing their dear ones, and the list goes on. Those who have lost their family members, relatives, close ones are still undergoing a weak emotional state and depression.
So the question arises – do we recognize these mental issues at large. If yes, then again, there is a layer to it. Accessibility to mental health services/ counseling is a matter of concern that is to be looked at. Vulnerable sections of society who belong to the lower ladder hardly get any access to these services. In many families, such issues are not even taken seriously. Though the government has started free helpline services for mental health counseling through NIMHANS, do the poor people get access to it? We still have to look into it. Further, socio-economic demographics from those calls that have been received need to be noted down to generalize some sort of pattern so that we can map down accordingly to ensure equity in terms of providing counseling/ mental health services to them. Creating awareness and campaigns regarding mental health counseling and the helplines may be helpful in this regard. It has even become essential in today's time as people are dealing with lots of uncertainties and fear related to the upcoming news and predictions of the third Wave of Covid-19.
Neha Mishra is a Social Welfare Officer at the Department of Women and Child Development, Delhi Government. She is also a part-time research scholar at IIT-Roorkee, working on the prospects of sustainable tourism in the current scenario. Any views expressed are personal.
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