More at­ten­tion should be paid to chil­dren suf­fer­ing with men­tal health is­sues. This call came from Dr Rai Rag­bir, med­ical prac­ti­tion­er and Cu­mu­to Man­zanil­la MP.

He was at the time speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at his Ch­agua­nas of­fice on Thurs­day. Rag­bir said with World Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Day card­ed for this Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 10, more train­ing should be giv­en to per­sons in­volved in the lives of young peo­ple.

He said, “It starts from peo­ple like my­self who are health­care work­ers to be trained in iden­ti­fy­ing where there are men­tal health is­sues. We may be trained in oth­er spheres but we need to be trained, our care­givers, our teach­ers, peo­ple who are amongst our chil­dren need to be trained on men­tal health iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and the way for­ward, how to deal with it.”

Dr Rag­bir said the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic saw chil­dren de­vel­op­ing is­sues men­tal­ly af­ter be­ing at home for two years and not be­ing able to cope with the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. He said, “We have to look out for chil­dren who are at risk for sui­cide.”

He said there is an uptick in the num­ber of Covid-19 in­fec­tions and res­pi­ra­to­ry tract in­fec­tions caused by Sa­hara dust. Dr Rag­bir ad­vised per­sons with res­pi­ra­to­ry tract in­fec­tions to stay home un­til they get bet­ter. He called on the Min­istry of Health to is­sue prop­er guide­lines for stu­dents and school per­son­nel now that masks are re­moved.