Sassoon Hospital’s mental-health department is seeing a sustained flow of young people in distress, including four to five patients referred every day after attempting suicide. The figures, shared by the department head Dr Nishikant Thorat, point not only to a serious mental-health challenge among Pune’s youth but also to the growing pressure placed on a major public hospital that serves patients from across the region.
The department recorded about 52,000 outpatients last year. In the six months from April to September this year, it recorded around 36,000 patients, while daily attendance has reached between 150 and 200 people. These figures cover a wide range of conditions, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, as well as behavioural and emotional problems among children.
The numbers do not establish a single cause for the increase, and the report does not provide a citywide prevalence study. They do, however, show the scale of demand reaching one institutional point: Sassoon Hospital’s psychiatry and psychology services. The hospital is functioning both as a local provider for Pune residents and as a referral centre for people arriving from other districts.
### A public hospital carrying a regional load
About 40 per cent of the department’s outpatient patients come from outside Pune district, according to the hospital. The largest groups are reported to come from Dharashiv, Beed and Ahilyanagar, followed by patients from Daund and Baramati. If the daily outpatient volume is between 150 and 200, the reported share implies that roughly 60 to 80 patients a day may be travelling from outside the city or district for care.
That referral pattern changes the meaning of the hospital’s caseload. Sassoon is not dealing only with demand generated within Pune’s municipal limits. It is also absorbing cases from places where patients may have fewer specialised mental-health services or where families may rely on a large public hospital for treatment. The supplied report does not establish the availability of services in each originating district, but the geographic spread indicates that the department’s responsibilities extend beyond a single urban population.
For patients and families, this regional role can involve travel, repeated hospital visits and dependence on a central institution for continuing care. The report does not provide details of travel distances, treatment costs or waiting times, so the full burden on households cannot be quantified from the available data. The outpatient distribution nevertheless shows how demand for specialist care can accumulate at a tertiary public hospital.
### Young people are prominent among the highest-risk cases
The hospital has observed that most patients referred after suicide attempts are between 15 and 30 years old, with young women forming a relatively larger share. Dr Thorat identified relationship-related stress, family problems and examination pressure as major factors associated with these cases. Some cases also involve alcohol use and addiction, he said.
The hospital reports four to five daily referrals of patients who have attempted suicide from other departments to psychiatry. Around 10 to 12 such patients require admission and treatment each month. These figures describe the cases reaching Sassoon and should not be read as a measure of all suicide attempts in Pune or Maharashtra. They do, however, indicate a recurring need for psychiatric assessment after an emergency medical event.
The department decides treatment after assessing the intensity of a patient’s thoughts, any previous attempts, family support and the surrounding circumstances. Treatment may include medicines, counselling and specialised care. This process highlights why a suicide attempt cannot be treated only as an isolated emergency. Once the immediate physical danger is addressed, the hospital must assess continuing risk, the patient’s support system and the treatment required after discharge.
The source report also describes a wider set of problems among children and young people, including irritability, anger, difficulty concentrating on studies and behavioural issues associated with excessive mobile-phone and social-media use. These concerns are not equivalent to suicide attempts or severe psychiatric illness, but their presence in the same outpatient system shows the range of needs being presented to mental-health professionals.
### Demand is rising faster than a simple headline can show
The comparison between last year’s annual outpatient figure and the current year’s six-month figure is significant but requires care. Around 52,000 patients were recorded over the previous year, while about 36,000 were recorded between April and September. The supplied material does not specify whether the figures use identical counting methods, whether they refer to new or repeat patients, or whether staffing and registration practices changed during the period.
Even with those limitations, the reported numbers show that the department is handling a large and continuing volume of care. A daily attendance of 150 to 200 patients means that the department must manage assessment, follow-up, counselling and treatment decisions across different levels of severity. The same system is also receiving patients after suicide attempts and supporting students and children with emotional or behavioural problems.
The figures therefore raise an institutional question: how does a public hospital organise services when routine outpatient demand, serious mental illness, crisis referrals and preventive counselling arrive through the same department? The report does not provide staffing numbers, bed capacity, waiting times or the number of psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors available. Without those measures, it is not possible to determine whether the department has adequate capacity or how far demand exceeds it.
What is clear is that the department has introduced a dedicated support service for medical students, called the Chhatra Manas Kaksha. It refers students for counselling and provides support to outpatients and patients already receiving regular treatment. Four to five students are counselled there each day, according to the report. The concerns identified include adapting to a new environment, academic pressure and difficulties caused by living away from home.
The student service shows the importance of targeted institutional responses within large hospitals and educational environments. Medical students form a distinct group: they face academic demands, relocation and separation from family while remaining within a high-pressure training system. The report does not say whether the service will be expanded or whether similar support is available across other colleges, but its creation indicates that the hospital has identified a specific population requiring dedicated attention.
### The missing layer is continuity of care
The data supplied by Sassoon Hospital is strongest on entry into the system: outpatient registrations, emergency referrals and admissions. It provides less information about what happens afterwards. There are no figures on follow-up attendance, treatment completion, repeat attempts, discharge planning, community-based care or referrals back to local providers.
That gap matters because the hospital’s regional role means that many patients may return to districts outside Pune after treatment. The department assesses family support as part of deciding treatment, but the report does not explain how families are supported once a patient leaves the hospital or how continuity is maintained for patients who live far away. It also does not establish whether district-level services are equipped to receive these patients.
This is not evidence that continuity is failing. It is an indication that outpatient and emergency counts alone cannot describe the performance of a mental-health system. A fuller picture would require information on staffing, bed availability, follow-up care, referral networks and the distribution of services across the districts sending patients to Sassoon. Those details are not available in the supplied report.
The hospital’s experience also shows why mental health has an urban-service dimension. Pune combines a large student population, major educational institutions and a public hospital that serves both the city and surrounding districts. The pressures described by the department—relationship difficulties, family problems, examinations, addiction, adaptation to new surroundings and excessive mobile-phone use—are experienced at household and individual levels, but they reach the public system through hospitals, colleges and emergency departments.
The evidence confirms three connected trends at Sassoon: high outpatient demand, a substantial share of patients arriving from outside Pune, and repeated referrals of young people after suicide attempts. It also confirms that the department is responding through clinical assessment, medicines, counselling, specialised treatment and a dedicated student support unit. What remains uncertain is the department’s capacity in relation to demand and the strength of care available after patients return home.
For policymakers and hospital administrators, the next important evidence will be more detailed information on staffing, admissions, follow-up services, referral pathways and district-level capacity. For now, Sassoon’s figures show that the mental-health burden reaching a public hospital is not confined to one age group or one diagnosis—and that Pune’s largest public health institutions are increasingly being asked to manage both acute crises and long-term psychological care.
