NOWHERE TO GO…      

Abandoned by their families many inmates continue to languish in the Bareilly Mental Hospital even after they have been cured.   - BY SURABHI BAJAJ 

Insanity prevails at the Bareilly Mental hospital in more ways than one. Incredible though, it may read, but many inmates continue to languish in the asylum even after they had been treated, simply because they have nowhere to go. It is pathetically converting into a jail for many of those wretched patients who once get admitted here.

Abandoned by their families, they live here in despair, hoping against hope that some day their family members will come calling and accept them back in their folds. Tulsa, though, has no such illusions. Having spent more than 30 years in the asylum, she seems to have reconciled her fate. “Tees saal mein koi milne nahin aaya, to ab kaun aayega? (If no one came to meet me in these thirty years, who would come now). Ab to yahi hamara ghar hai (now, the asylum is my home),” she says staring vacantly into space.            

In the course of conversation with Tulsa, one other patient Anvari numbly ran towards me and started begging for her release in a very feeble tone. She is still hopeful and would do just about anything to see the world beyond hospital walls. “hamko ghar bhijwa do Didi. Ham Bihar ke rahne wale hain aur aath saal se yahan hain” (please have me sent home Didi, I am from Bihar and have spent eight years here), she pleads. “ab to hamare baal bhi pak gaye hain (now even my hair have turned white),” she showed her hair that turned gray during her life at the hospital. She even misconstrues (or construes!) the place she is living in for years, “humko yahan ‘jail’ mein band kar diya. Yahan sab ganda ganda hai,” added she, for whom, it is, as if destined to spend life this miserably.         

It’s not that the hospital authorities are not aware of the plight of these ill fated individuals- it’s just that they can’t do anything to alleviate their sufferings. “We are helpless,” concedes Chief Medical Superintendent Dr S Sihota. “In some cases, we don’t have the address of the patients, in others, there is nobody willing to them back,” she adds. Dr Sihota lets me in another disturbing fact: post treatment male members though are accepted back, but females are quite invariably abandoned. That’s not all. According to Sihota, there have been several instances of the hospital receiving ‘sifarishi’ (recommending) letters from political people and those high-ups. There is an immense pressure of these letters on the authorities, stating that the patient has not fully cured and should therefore be kept in the asylum.

But who gave these political creatures the right to judge the condition of a patient there!!  “Because of this situation we have even restricted admission of much needed people to the hospital as there is a stipulated figure for number of admissions,” says Sihota.               

The picture on the other fronts is no less shocking. Take the staff strength for instance, which the hospital is appallingly short of. The Mental Health Act stipulates that there should be one staff nurse for every three patients and one psychiatrist for every 10 patients. At the Bareilly Mental Hospital however, the post of nurse doesn’t even exist!

“Unlike normal people, most of these patients are highly emotional. Sure enough when they find themselves abandoned by their families even after they had been cured, they become reclusive and go into severe depression. This state of mind worsens their condition, often leading to a relapse,” says Chief superintendent Dr Priya Singh. “We try to keep them busy by teaching them stitching and farming, but in the absence of either adequate staff or budget, we are not able to do much,” she adds.

“It is very sad, that the tag of being in the mental hospital earlier, acts as a social taboo for them. This upsets their normal life and they just hang between the two lives of a normal and abnormal person but are forced to live with mentally ill people here,” rues Singh.

Some time back, the social Welfare Department initiated a scheme to provide ‘Half-way homes’ so that they could rehabilitate such mentally challenged people. However, the district office of the department is totally oblivious of it. “There is no such home in entire UP. In fact, I am hearing this word for the first time from you,” exclaims District Social Welfare Officer, PC Upadhyaya.      

What’s more sad is that no other organization has come forward for their help.

Is anybody there??