Meeting the Challenge of COVID-19 Pandemic in Mental Health Care in a Tertiary-Care General Hospital in India

Abstract

Abstract Medical profession has proved its versatility in the adoption of many strategies to deal with the impact of COVID-19. All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India is a large public funded medical school and general hospital in North India. Psychiatry department is one of the 42 departments at AIIMS. COVID-19 has impacted all the functions of the department: clinical care, teaching and training, research and other roles. In this communication, we report the strategies, simple yet effective improvisations to meet the challenges of COVID-19 so as to continue the basic functions of the discipline. This could serve as a model for continued functioning of a tertiary care teaching medical facility in a pandemic situation.