“The Cowasjee Jahangir Institute of Psychiatry would be Asia’s first university of psychiatry and behavioural science, and the institute, which is 150 years old, deserves to be a university.
The 150-year-old Sir Cowasjee Jahangir Institute of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences in Sindh will be elevated to the status of a full-fledged university, according to the Sindh chief minister.
“The Cowasjee Jahangir Institute of Psychiatry would be Asia’s first university of psychiatry and behavioural science, and the institute, which is 150 years old, deserves to be a university in the heart of the province, Hyderabad.”
This he said during the opening ceremony of the Sir Cowasji Jahangir Institute of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences’ OPD Complex and Female Ward. Dr Karim Khwaja, Chairman of the Sindh Mental Authority, organised the event. Ismail Rahu, Minister of Universities and Boards, Jam Khan Shoro, MPAs Dr Sohran Sarki and Jabbar Khan were also present.
Chief Minister stated that his father, then-Chief Minister, had visited the Sir Cowasjee Jahangir Institute of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences and dedicated a ward in 1994. “Following in my father’s footsteps, I’ve come here on Dr. Karim’s invitation to inaugurate the new OPD block and the new female ward,” Chief Minister said.
According to Chief Minister, mental health is a state of mental well-being that allows people to cope with life’s stresses. “Only a person with good mental health can play a positive role in Community and Nation,” he said, adding that “Mental health was more than the absence of mental disorders and existed on a complex continuum, which was experienced differently by one person to the next, with varying degrees of difficulty and distress and potentially very different social and clinical outcomes.”
According to the CM, mental health conditions include mental disorders and psychosocial disabilities, as well as other mental states associated with significant distress, functional impairment, and the risk of self-harm or harm to others. Mental health is just as important as physical health.
“Exposure to unfavourable social, economic, geopolitical, and environmental circumstances, such as poverty, violence, inequality, and environmental deprivation,” CM explained. He went on to say that mental health risks and protective factors could be found on different scales in society.
According to the CM, local threats increase the risk for individuals, families, and communities. “Global threats, such as economic problems, disease outbreaks, humanitarian emergencies such as floods, and forced displacement due to the growing climate crisis,” he said, adding that each risk and protective factor has only limited predictive strength.
He claims that most people do not develop a mental health condition despite being exposed to a risk factor, and that many people who have no known risk factor develop a mental health condition. Nonetheless, the interacting determinants of mental health services either improve or degrade mental health.
With pride, the Chief Minister announced that the Cowasjee Jahangir Institute of Psychiatry would be upgraded to the level of a modern university. He directed his Minister for U&B, Ismail Rahu, to complete its legal formalities so that the assembly could approve its charter. “Meanwhile, work would begin,” he stated.
Originally published at Business Recorder