Neha Kirpal, the co-founder of Amaha, a mental healthcare centre, has been listed 40 under 40 most influential people in India. At HCI, she shared her personal narrative -her experience as a mental health caregiver, offering strength and hope to our participants.
Her mom was schizophrenic, and her brother died of suicide in the past. Yet, she did not choose to be a victim and took the responsibility of helping people. Having founded India’s first international art fair and running it successfully for 10 years, she winded it up to turn her attention to the mental health sector to help marginalized society members.
According to Neha people with mental health issues are in crisis. They need a helping hand be it online or offline. She aims at bringing such people together. She feels that families who are also suffering along with mental health patients should have a support system to be able to reach out. She is an active member of HCI group too and is always involved in HCI activities. In her own words, “It’s important to bring down the barrier which circles mental health taboos. The patients should get help at the right time also.”
For supporting people who are in crisis, her organization Amaha has incorporated a large circle of healthcare providers. There are psychiatrists and psychologists who are helping people round the clock. Today, 15000 members are getting online and offline support through Amaha.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Neha struggled a lot to get the right kind of help at the right time. This resulted in her involvement in Amaha, where she took the lead in bringing a change in the mental health sector.
Neha’s mother eventually passed away, but because of her mother’s illness, she learnt a lot to deal with several kinds of mental health illnesses. According to her, addressing the patients as early as possible is the only way to treat them. The earlier you reach the patient the better the chance of recovery.
Amaha has reached around 5 million people through its app. There are a plethora of healthcare workers working with this organization. They offer therapy in 16 to 18 languages. With such stats, we can say that they have literally made a revolution in mental health issues. People can chat, call or email and access online tools 24* 7.
Further, Neha reiterates that since doctors take time to do some sort of experiment in giving the right medicine, the time to adjust the right medicine is a real challenge. Sometimes the problem is difficult to understand. Another issue facing mental health patients is that they are extremely vulnerable. For treating them they need to be taken to the doctors and this becomes a real challenge.
Neha has lost 11 years of childhood as her family life was hugely complicated. Her mom, dad, and brother were all having some or other mental health issues. Still, she managed to keep herself active and productive which acted as a shield for her and enabled her to make a difference. She kept herself going through this rough phase and successfully sailed the rough seas. Whenever she was pushed into the corner, she managed to prove her mettle with flying colors.
So, how did Neha become such a super achiever?
According to Neha she always believed in the power of positivity. If you are willing to accept the circumstances rather than fight them, then most of the problems are overcome. There might be days where we are feeling extremely positive and there are days where circumstances are quite the opposite. We need to be one with ourselves. Whatever happened with her she accepted everything without getting into victim mode.
We also inquired with her about the statistical data available for different medications. She answered that there is a lot of research being done currently. As of now, the medication needs to stand the test of time. Some medicines work on certain patients, some drugs don’t work. Helping people understand the ground reality is very important. Patients can have a combination of one or multiple issues. The treatment is always given as per the patient feedback. Hence the experimentation time is unavoidable.
All in all, it was an enlightening session for all of us at HCI as we understood and gained from Neha’s life experience and felt motivated by her work at Amaha.
- Written by Aniket Kundu
- Co-ordinated by Amol More
- Edited and posted by Mahrukh
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