Mental Health issues of journalists must be debated and addressed: Dr Samir Parekh, Dr Kamna Chhiber

Chandigarh, May 28, 2022: Mental Health issues of journalists must be debated and addressed and the media houses should pay attention to the mental stress faced by the media persons at different levels and in odd situations like COVID times. The stress level and indications of depression must be identified and the necessary steps should be taken from sharing and taking medical advice.

This was the conclusion of the Training Session on Mental Health of Journalists organized by Facebook (Meta ) with the active help of Fortis Health organized today at Chandigarh. The session gave insights and tips on how to manage one's mental health and help other colleagues and friends who may be suffering with mental stress.

The session started with an address by Ramya Venugopal from News Media Partnership of Facebook and Trushar Barot, Strategic Partner Development at Meta.  Ramya welcomed and introduced the subject and concept of organising this training session for media persons.

Independent journalist Pamposh Raina was the moderator of this engrossing session, she welcomed the delegates to the session. In her address she said that the work of a journalist can have a big impact on his or her mental health as journalists face tight deadlines and remain under great work pressure. Journalists are the ones who are always first to be present at the scene of traumatic events for reporting and throughout their work schedule they continuously deal with online videos and graphic digital images.  That is why; this first of its kind brainstorming session was organized in the city, beautiful for the media fraternity.

The session today was well attended by about 100 plus members from the media fraternity from Tricity region and Mass communication students from Chitkara University and Chandigarh Group of Colleges. Directors, Vox Foundation Avinash Kalla, Jameel Ahmed Khan were also present on the occasion. News portal babushahi.com also played an instrumental role in organizing this insightful session.

The main session which lasted for 2 hours was conducted by Dr. Samir Parikh an eminent Psychiatrist and TEDx speaker who has been working in the field of mental health for over the past two decades and presently Dr. Samir Parikh is the Director of the Fortis National Mental Health Program. He was accompanied by Dr. Kamna Chhibber, a trained therapist and Head of Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Healthcare and Dr Divya Jain.

Sharing his overview Dr. Samir Parikh said that the way for physical health we believe that prevention is cure by changing our eating habits, lifestyle etc, its high time the same principle is applied for mental health also. For which we need to equip ourselves to identify mental stress at early stages and to do that we should never hesitate to seek help and reach out to a professional immediately instead of continuing to be treated as taboo.

In the end Dr. Kamna Chhibber and Dr Divya Jain together answered the various queries raised by the journalist.