MUMBAI, INDIA — Since the gruesome Mumbai terrorist attacks, mental health experts understandably have been in big demand here. But India, with 1.1 billion people, has only 4,000 psychiatrists, and efforts to provide adequate professional help for those traumatized by the rampage is proving a daunting task.
Psychiatrists say it's not unusual to arrive at rural clinics and find 300 people waiting to see them. Each patient receives five minutes of attention at best. Many give up and go in search of more traditional forms of assistance.
Evening "relaxation and breathing" workshops, for example, are being offered in the immediate environs of the Chabad Jewish center that was among the targets of the attacks, which left more than 170 people dead and hundreds injured last month.
"We help ease people's tension through breathing techniques," said Ami Patel, an instructor with the Art of Living Foundation, which offers the sessions. "And people appreciate the feeling that someone cares."
Then there is traditional healer Laksham Meshram, 61, who sits cross-legged on a Mumbai sidewalk a few blocks from the bullet-pocked Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel and the Jewish center.
Stretched out before him are 90 bottles of roots, bark and finely ground powder. The healer, who has been practicing his craft for 35 years, said people come to him for headaches and other problems, including some that may be psychosomatic. Even his potions may be no match for this crisis, he said, adding that there's no cure for raw terror.
"Death may be the only medicine for that," Meshram said.
Mental health professionals say they must battle deep-seated stigmas in some of the more traditional communities they serve, including the view that anyone who visits them must be "loony," even as they navigate the shoals of India's huge, diverse population.
Mumbai psychiatrist Anukant Mittal is a case in point. He shuttles among city hospitals, suburban clinics and primitive rural facilities, all part of a catchment area of 26 million people.
On any given day, Mittal sees patients varying from chief executives of high-tech multinationals, who pay $50 per visit, to illiterate villagers wearing nothing but strips of cloth over their loins, and pay a subsidized 5-cent fee.
Rural residents sometimes turn instead to a shaman.
