At Amaha, we recognised early that the real opportunity lies in expanding capacity through smarter systems, not just expanding headcount by adding more therapists to the system.
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 17: Mental healthcare in India has long been discussed in terms of awareness and access. What is now coming into sharper focus is the quality and continuity of care available once individuals do seek help. For many, the journey still involves navigating disconnected services, unclear treatment pathways, and limited options when care needs intensify. Amaha’s decision to establish a dedicated inpatient mental health hospital in Bengaluru reflects a shift in how private healthcare providers are approaching these challenges. Rather than treating inpatient care as an isolated intervention, the hospital has been designed as part of a broader, integrated system that links digital support, outpatient services, and structured residential treatment.
In this conversation, Dr. Amit Malik, Founder and CEO of Amaha, discusses the thinking behind this model, the operational and clinical principles guiding the hospital, and the role integrated systems can play in strengthening India’s mental healthcare landscape over the long term.
1. Dr. Amit, Amaha has launched its flagship Mental Health Hospital in Bangalore, what was the vision behind establishing this inpatient facility, and how does it address the most critical gaps in India’s current mental health infrastructure?
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When we started Amaha nine years ago, one gap was immediately clear: there was the need for a system that could support people through the full arc of their recovery. Care was fragmented. People delayed seeking help because of stigma, and even when they did, they encountered inconsistent quality, limited evidence-based practice, unpredictable costs, and almost no coordination between digital support, outpatient care, and hospitalisation. Our vision has always been to change this by building an integrated continuum of care. Over time, we connected digital tools, therapy, psychiatry, and teleconsultations. The inpatient hospital is the next step in creating a seamless pathway.
The other gap we saw was the quality of inpatient private mental healthcare itself. Even where services existed, they were often inconsistent: limited clinical governance, weak multidisciplinary coordination, and environments that did little to support recovery. We wanted to raise the baseline for what safe, structured, evidence-based inpatient mental healthcare in India should look like. Our hospital brings together psychiatrists, therapists, nurses, and allied specialists working with shared protocols, real clinical supervision, and a predictable, transparent approach to care. The environment is deliberately therapeutic rather than institutional because dignity, structure, and emotional safety are essential to recovery, not add-ons.
With nine outpatient centres and now a 27-bed hospital, we’re building capacity where it is urgently needed and creating a model that can be replicated. The goal is to show that high-quality, coordinated care is not aspirational in India, it should be the minimum standard.
2. India continues to face an alarming shortage of qualified mental health professionals. How does Amaha’s integrated care model combining digital, outpatient, and inpatient services help bridge this capacity gap?
At Amaha, we recognised early that the real opportunity lies in expanding capacity through smarter systems, not just expanding headcount by adding more therapists to the system.
Our integrated care model is built exactly for this. By combining digital tools, outpatient services, and structured inpatient care, we create multiple layers of support so that not every need relies on a clinician alone. A large proportion of people come to us with early-stage or sub-clinical concerns, where guidance, structure, and behavioural interventions can provide adequate support. Our care team and trained coaches deepen this layer by helping people navigate their options when they want to consult a professional, and absorbing the operational and follow-up load. This ensures that therapists and psychiatrists focus on the cases that truly require specialised intervention, rather than being the first, and only, touchpoint for everyone.
Within the clinical layer, capacity grows with quality. Our clinicians work within a system of ongoing supervision, case discussions, and faculty-led training, ensuring that skills compound and care stays consistent across settings. Multidisciplinary teamwork means psychiatrists, therapists, and care managers share responsibility for every case, distributing expertise, avoiding silos, and preventing burnout.
3. Many mental health institutions in India remain limited to either counselling or psychiatry. How is Amaha’s hospital setting new benchmarks in evidence-based, multidisciplinary care?
Most institutions in India still operate in silos, offering either counselling or psychiatry, which limits how well care can be coordinated. Amaha is built to close that gap through a multidisciplinary model that functions as one unit rather than parallel services.
Treatment plans are co-created from the outset. Psychiatrists anchor diagnosis and medical stabilisation, psychologists develop the therapeutic formulation and deliver psychotherapeutic interventions, with the broader team - nurses, care team, coaches - adding insights on daily functioning, behaviour, family systems, and strengths (especially in the hospital setting).
This gives us a holistic, clinically grounded view of each individual and ensures that every intervention is aligned to that shared understanding. This collaboration takes the form of regular multidisciplinary team discussions that bring together all perspectives, including those of the family and the client, to review progress and refine management plans. Standardised protocols, structured assessments, and shared records ensure that the team works with the same information and clinical logic, supporting safer decisions, clear escalation pathways, and measurable outcomes.
4.The hospital has been described as “purpose-built” and “evidence-based.” Could you elaborate on the clinical design philosophy and what makes this facility different from traditional psychiatric hospitals in India?
When we describe the hospital as “purpose-built” and “evidence-based,” we mean that every aspect of it has been designed around what actually helps people get better, rather than the custodial practices that have shaped psychiatric care in India for decades. The space is meant to support clinical work and patient experience. Open nursing stations improve visibility and safety. Dedicated areas for group therapy, occupational therapy, and family work allow us to run structured interventions throughout the day. Low-stimulation rooms help with de-escalation. Predictable routines and a clear rhythm to the day help restore functioning, build skills, and bring people back to a sense of structure.
Underlying these choices are six design principles that guide how the hospital has been built. Safety drives decisions around sightlines, open stations, and ligature-resistant fixtures. Accessibility is reflected in barrier-free layouts and simple wayfinding. Sustainability informs our use of natural light, ventilation, and durable materials. Sensory considerations shape acoustics, lighting, and colour choices so that the environment supports emotional regulation. The aesthetic is intentionally non-institutional and human, which helps people feel more comfortable and engaged in treatment. Pricing decisions focus on using resources where they improve safety and outcomes, which keeps the model both accessible and scalable.
Together, these elements ensure that the environment plays an active role in treatment and recovery.
5. Inpatient mental healthcare in India often carries social stigma. How is Amaha working to change public perceptions around seeking structured, residential mental health support?
Psychoeducation is central to solving for this. At Amaha, we break down diagnoses, treatment plans, medical prescriptions, and treatment outcomes in a way that is practical and easy to understand. Clinician-led videos, guides, and support kits help people understand what happens in outpatient care, when inpatient support is appropriate, and what outcomes to expect: demystifying the entire process. Coaches are also key here in helping people navigate their options when they aren’t sure where to begin.
Communities play an equally important role in recovery. Through the Amaha Hope Collective, we bring lived experiences of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and recovery into public spaces, schools, workplaces, and online communities. When individuals hear stories from people who have benefited from structured or inpatient support, they begin to see these interventions as responsible, positive steps rather than the last resort.
We’re also working closely with 100+ employers across technology, manufacturing, BFSI, education, logistics, and healthcare, to embed different levels of mental healthcare into mainstream health benefits. When outpatient care, crisis stabilisation, and even short-term inpatient support show up alongside other health services people already use, they feel more legitimate, accessible, and normal.
We also have an extended network of 300+ psychiatrists that we collaborate with to strengthen early identification, and help professionals recognise when inpatient care is appropriate and communicate this to patients in a way that feels informed, transparent, and non-stigmatising.
6. Amaha’s model also integrates community and corporate partnerships. In your view, what role can workplaces, insurers, and public institutions play in expanding access to mental healthcare in India?
Workplaces, insurers, and public institutions sit at the points where most people first encounter stress, cost barriers, or systemic gaps which is why they are central to expanding access.
Workplaces are where early signs of distress are most visible. When organisations treat mental health as part of culture and performance, they normalise early help-seeking instead of waiting for crisis. Insurers address the biggest barrier: affordability. When mental health is covered like physical health, care becomes financially realistic and gains legitimacy. Insurance also supports continuity, allowing people to stay in treatment long enough for it to work. Public institutions provide scale. Schools, community systems, and government programmes shape early attitudes and enable early identification, especially for populations outside the formal workforce. They create the pathways that move people from awareness to timely care.
Together, these systems normalise help-seeking, reduce financial barriers, and embed mental health into everyday environments, which is essential for expanding access.
7.Given the rising prevalence of anxiety and depression in urban India, what early intervention strategies or prevention-focused initiatives is Amaha incorporating to reach individuals before their conditions become severe?
Early intervention, for us, starts with reducing the time it takes for someone to recognise that they are struggling. Most people do not seek help because they do not know what they are experiencing, they minimise it, or they do not know where to start. So, our focus has been on building systems that make recognition, self-assessment, and timely access far easier.
On the client side, we use our digital channels, our self-care app and events to put out clinically accurate, relevant information, not just about symptoms but about risk factors, early warning signs, and what different forms of care actually involve. Within our app, tools like self-assessments, mood tracking, and personalised insights allow individuals to do quick check-ins and identify patterns they may not have noticed.
Our virtual communities also play an important role. Beyond normalising conversations around anxiety and stress, these are organised into condition-specific and identity-affirming channels, including dedicated spaces for neurodiversity, mood-related concerns, and the LGBTQ+ community, all guided by clinicians to ensure safety and accuracy. These focused groups help people find others who “get it,” deepen awareness through lived narratives, reduce stigma, and often encourage timely, appropriate care.
A key part of prevention is how our outpatient and inpatient systems work together. Clinicians across our nine centres follow shared protocols that help flag risk early, whether it's worsening symptoms, functional decline, or safety concerns. This allows for timely referrals into structured or inpatient care before situations become unmanageable.
Together, these systems shorten the distance between awareness and action, which is the most critical lever in preventing mild and moderate concerns from becoming severe.
8. Looking ahead, what is Amaha’s long-term vision for the hospital in Bangalore? Do you foresee expanding this inpatient care model to other regions across India?
Our long-term vision for the Bangalore hospital is to set a new benchmark for inpatient and intensive mental healthcare in India. Care that is safe, collaborative, person-centered, evidence-based, and consistently supervised should be standard, but in reality, even these fundamentals are unevenly available. This hospital is our response to that gap.
While the clinical model draws on global best practices, it has been built for Indian realities, where families play a central role, cultural context shapes routines and recovery, and the 92% treatment gap in mental health hospital beds demands solutions that are both scalable and deeply grounded.
Given the country’s severe shortage of specialised psychiatric beds, I don’t see inpatient care as something that can remain siloed. So yes, we do envision expanding this model to other regions over time, integrating it into a broader ecosystem that spans outpatient, community, and digital care, so people can access the right level of support wherever they are.
