Surge in distress calls to TN health helpline after NEET results

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government’s health helpline set up for providing counselling to NEET aspirants is flooded with calls from students who failed to crack the exams.

After the NEET results were announced on Wednesday midnight, the number of calls to the helpline has increased manifold.

The psychological counselling for NEET-UG aspirants began in Tamil Nadu on July 19 as several students in the state had died by suicide last year after failing to crack the exam.

Staff working with 104 helplines told IANS that callers are in a distressed state of mind and many callers wanted to know how they can cope up with the reality that they could not crack NEET.

The counsellors told IANS that most of the students who had approached them were those who had got more than 90 per cent marks in core science subjects like Physics, Chemistry and Biology in their Tamil Nadu plus two board examinations.

A counsellor from 104 helpline who is attending to calls said: “Most of the students who are calling have been doing consistently good in academics and scoring high marks in core science subjects. However, they failed to clear the test and hence are dejected and in a highly disturbed and distressed state of mind.”

She said that they feel that all their studies went in vain and that there was no other option other than ending their life. It may be noted that 1,32,167 students appeared for NEET-UG examinations from Tamil Nadu this year and of which 67,787 qualified.

The helpline staff also said that they had tried to reach out to the 19-year-old girl from Ambattur in Chennai who died by suicide immediately after the results were out.

The state government is trying to extend the services of the helpline as the number of distress calls are increasing.