AMRITSAR: A thirty five-member delegation of renowned experts and professionals of Mental Health and related fields from West Punjab (Pakistan), Thursday visited the Guru Nanak Dev University.

During visit Pak delegation had a interactive session with the faculty, research scholars and students of Department of Human Genetics, Centre for Genetic Disorders, and Department of Psychology of the University and of Psychiatry Departments of local government medical college, Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical Sciences and Research and Vidya Sagar Govt. Mental Hospital.

The visiting delegates, those were on their way to attend a 3-day 1st Annual Conference of Indo-Pak Punjab Psychiatric Society being hosted at Ludhiana and Chandigarh from September 15 to 17 by the society had a short stay in the University Campus as Guru Nanak Dev University being a leading University in the region is fostering international linkages for sharing of knowledge and common best practices.
           
The group leader of the delegation, Dr. Haroon Rashid Chaudhary, a renowned psychiatrist of international repute said that the patient care, media awareness and community education should be improved and encouraged in both the countries.
     
Dr. A.J.S. Bhanwar from the Department of Human Genetics of the University while extending a hearty welcome to the delegates on behalf of the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Jai Rup Singh and the University said mental health have become major public health concerns besetting/assailing humankind.
     
Besides diagnosis and treatment, management and research have become an integral component for the mental health professional and being a human geneticist, he was more familiar with the genetic factors influencing mental health. He said family history and genetic data suggest that many mental disorders, including psychiatric, mood and related behaviors, are polygenic and heterogeneous conditions, and that certain types of psychopathology in certain populations may share common inherited pathogenic factors.
     
Dr. D.J. Singh, Chairman, organizing committee of the conference said the theme of the conference is 'Mental Health Through Heritage' as Punjab on both sides of the boarder share common heritage, language and socio-cultural issues in addition to predominantly agrarian economics and majority of the people from both countries in Punjab come from similar rural background sharing common psychological and educational perspectives.
     
Dr. A.K. Kala, President, Indo-Pak Punjab Psychiatric Society in his introductory remarks Punjabs have common language, culture and heritage and have common socio-culture problems. Therefore he said the society was forged to look in the common problems by mental health professionals from Indian and Pakistani Punjab. He said with the reopening of the border more people to peoples contacts and collaborative efforts for remedy could be encouraged.
     
Dr. Feriha N. Beracha spoke on "Role of Education Institutions in Ensuring Mental Health". She observed, mostly psychological problems crop up in early childhood and continued later on. She talked about anxiety in students and need to recognize it and provide some benefit to the students. She suggested that the aptitude of the students have to be taken into account before counselling the students and parents. She also advised to recognize the symptoms in early childhood.
     
On this occasion, Dr. Haroon Rashid Chudhary, leader of the visiting delegation was honoured by Dr. Bhanwar and Dr. (Mrs.) Sharde Sidhu on behalf of Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Jai Rup Singh with a memento and a set of University publications. Dr.(Mrs.) Gursatej Gandhi, Head of the Department of the Human Genetics presented a vote of thanks and detailed the achievements of the Department.
     
Dr. Mumammed Asif, senior psychiatrist, Mr. Iftikhar Mahamood Randhawa, Dr. Muhammead Amjad Saqib and Mr. Bashir Ahmad Malik also presented their views on this occasions.