University status for 150-year-old Pakistan mental health facility

Karachi: Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, has announced granting the status of a university to a 150-year-old institute of mental health services in Hyderabad.

The move will help the institution reach international standards for treating patients suffering from various psychiatric illnesses.

Shah announced the upgrade of “Sir Cowasji Jahangir Institute of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences” in Hyderabad as he inaugurated a new outpatient department and a new female ward of the institute.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, Shah praised the selfless services of the employees of the institute to ensure that people suffering from various mental illnesses were properly rehabilitated to enable them to become productive members of society.

He said the institute was one of the oldest in Asia helping treat people suffering from mental diseases. People from across India used to visit this facility for treatment of psychiatric disorders during the British Raj.

“Just before this inauguration ceremony, I took a round of the wards at the institute where I met a female patient who requested me to ask her father to take her back home,” he said.

Shah said he was grateful to one of the female patients of the institute who had presented him a portrait she had painted.

“I’m the patron of this institution and I do concede that during my stint in power it was my sheer fault that I couldn’t come here earlier to learn about its urgent needs,” he said.

The CM assured the administration of the institute that there would be marked improvement in the facilities available at the institution in the remaining eight to nine months of his tenure as provincial chief executive, as he would ensure that all these requirements were met on an emergency basis.

He said the main issues of the institution like the shortage of trained human resources, including clinical psychologists and occupational therapists, unavailability of ambulance services and clinical laboratory facilities would all be met soon.

He said that there would also be rapid progress on his announcement to grant the status of a university to the institute.