Respected sir,

Following the recent unfortunate circumstances involving a student's death at the AIMS campus ,the students and alumni of this institute have growing concerns regarding the mental health support given to them during their training period.

Despite the success and accolades that have been bestowed upon our
Alma mater, we are extremely concerned that this is the 5th person in
recent history,who have attempted to commit suicide whilst being a student
at AIMS.
The statistics are appalling – all 5 of these people were young women,
and 2 out of the 5 died from injuries suffered from jumping off our
campus buildings.

What is more shocking is the ‘laissez-faire’ attitude of the
institute and the speed at which this was swept under the carpet. No one
talked to us about the incident, nor thought it would be appropriate to offer support
to a clearly traumatized student body.This pattern has inexplicably not
changed over the past 10 years since the first such incident happened.

As your eminent self would recognize, medicine is an incredibly tough vocation – death, sadness and trauma are part and parcel of our day jobs added to the long, grueling nature of training. As human beings, how can we take care of others if we cannot look after our own brethren?
The student welfare committee clearly is not functioning properly and exists in a disciplinary rather than a supportive function, and as proven by these unnecessary deaths, much more needs to be done.

We've formulated some suggestions that will help support the student body and ensure that adequate mental health support is provided to them. These are as follows:

1) Ensure adequate safety measures are in place including physical barriers / stringent security when it comes to roof access within the campus.

2) Establish a student support team for medical and allied health sciences. 

This can have two divisions. One for providing in-house support at the campus, whilst the other online as well as telephonic advice which can be supported by the vast alumni of AIMS from around the world.

3) The student support team members must be trained in the appropriate medical sciences and not random well wishers. For eg; the school of medicine members of the team must be trained in medicine and not an administrative employee with good intentions. Similarly, a pharmacy sciences student must be supported by a trained pharmacist as opposed to a librarian who is popular and good at communication.

4) All support provided to a student in need must be dealt with strict confidentiality. In the event that there are concerns regarding student safety, a pathway must be placed to ensure escalation to appropriately trained professionals like a psychologist. 

 5) All complaints of mental harassment made by students must be investigated, minuted and an outcome of the actions taken with regard to the complaint must be provided to the said student and a copy must be filed with the student support team leader. 

6) Remove individuals with recurrent mental harassment claims made against them from a student environment.

7) Ongoing audits and anonymous data collection from students to identify triggers and reasons for increased stress and authorizing quality improvement projects to tackle these effectively as a matter of urgency.

We implore you and other medical members of the management to take
urgent action to ensure these suggestions are implemented as soon as
possible. 
After all, what is the point of saving all the other lives when we cannot save our own?