Most aid agencies do not even consider proposals to treat mental health problems; those that do think of it as a minor player, overshadowed by the pressing need to save lives by treating physical illness. Vikram Patel Read Quote
India remains one of the few nations which still focuses entirely on an archaic de-addiction model, administered by the ministry of social justice and empowerment, to address drinking problems, adhering to a centuries-old idea of these problems being a moral disorder rather than a health condition. Vikram Patel Read Quote
Prohibition, like so many other policies imposed from the moral high ground, typically by those who do not drink, disproportionately affects the poor who resort to illegally brewed alcohol when they want a drink, not infrequently leading to their death, and are more likely to be harassed by the police. Vikram Patel Read Quote
In my mind, depression is, like all non-communicable diseases, a physiologically expressed condition which is profoundly influenced by our social and cultural environments. Depression is a global crisis not only because it is common and universal, but because the vast majority of affected people suffer in silence or receive inappropriate care. Vikram Patel Read Quote
In the end, I do not think we will find the neat boundary between ‘normal sadness’ and ‘clinical depression,’ if only because mood is an innate human characteristic, like weight or the length of our hair. However, to reject the very notion of depression as an illness on account of these difficulties is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Vikram Patel Read Quote
There seems little doubt in my mind that depression, in particular at the severe end of the experience of this condition, is as real a disorder as diabetes is at the severe end of blood glucose levels. Vikram Patel Read Quote
I have known I was destined to live in Goa the moment I first stepped foot on the Panjim docks from the ferry from Mumbai, when I was 18. Vikram Patel Read Quote
I learned so much in Zimbabwe, in particular about the need for humility in our ambition to extend mental health care in countries where there were very few psychiatrists and where the local culture harboured very different views about mental illness and healing. These experiences have profoundly influenced my thinking. Vikram Patel Read Quote
I am passionate about swimming, which I try to do at least five times a week. Vikram Patel Read Quote
Those who believe that health is a commodity, on par with cars or computers, fail to grasp the basic economic lesson that health is very vulnerable to exposure to the markets, not least due to the profound asymmetries in power between the providers and consumers. Vikram Patel Read Quote
