He was addressing a gathering at Central Jail, Parappana Agrahara on Wednesday after launching a project ‘Mental Health Care in Prisons.’ The project is the joint effort of the National Institute of Mental  Health And Neuro Sciences (Nimhans), the Central Jail at Parappana Agrahara and the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority (KSLSA) to detect prisoners suffering from mental illness and offer medical aid to them.

The Governor said the prevalence of mental disorders in prisons is high but access to treatment or healthcare is often very low. Mental disorders should be identified and managed at the primary care level. Prison staff and officers should be sensitised to provide good quality healthcare to the inmates. He expressed his concern for the mental health of prisoners going unnoticed.

Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court Cyriac Joseph, executive chairperson of KSLSA and Karnataka High Court Judges Justice Gopala Gowda, and Justice K L Manjunath, Advisor to Governor P K H Tharakan, ADGP and IP (Prisons) S T Ramesh and Director and Vice Chancellor of Nimhans Dr D Nagaraja too expressed their views.
The project, spanning one-and-half-years and costing around Rs 13.72 lakh, is funded by the KSLSA. Under this project, a mental health survey would be conducted on around 5000 jail inmates in three phases.

Questionnaire
The prisoners will be given a 40-page questionnaire to answer and accordingly their mental health would be gauged. On the basis of the outcome treatment would be given to them. There will be five initiative team members- Four from Nimhans and one from the Central Prison Hospital.

Khushbu’s mantra
The Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court Justice Cyriac Joseph said Tamil actress Khushbu had a mantra to stay physically and mentally healthy and that was to say sorry whenever there was a difference of opinion with her husband.

He said if getting angry was one level of mental illness, begging forgiveness was an indication of improved mental health.