The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) will hold a southern region review meeting on mental health on March 12 at the Y.W.C.A. in Chennai.

It is being organized in collaboration with Institute of Mental Health (IMH).

NHRC Member P.C. Sharma will inaugurate the meeting.

The States/UTs to be covered in this review meeting include Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep.

During the meeting, the points of discussion will include:

Overall conditions in mental hospitals;

Status of implementation of District mental health programme;

Status of proposals of mental hospitals and District hospital pending with State Government for augmenting facilities as well as granting permission to carry out teaching courses;

Modified steps proposed.

NHRC Secretary General K.S. Money will also participate in the meeting. Important functionaries and other stakeholders, including representatives of the State health machinery will be attending the meeting.

The review meeting is in continuation with NHRC's involvement in monitoring of the mental health care system in the country.

In this connection, the NHRC has made a number of recommendations to all the concerned authorities. The review meetings of various States divided into five zones of the country are being held in this context.

Prior to this, the review meetings of mental health care system in Eastern, Western and North-Eastern zones have already been held.

The commission has observed that though the financial resources and infrastructure of most hospitals has improved several areas of functioning and quality of mental health care is still remains critical. (ANI)