CUTTACK: Despite being considered ‘destitutes to the extreme’, the urban homeless with mental illness admitted to the SCB Medical College and Hospital for treatment are seemingly left to their own fate without any proper care or surveillance by the doctors and staff.
Such is the situation that even if such patients escape from the hospital, the authorities simply mention their names under LAMA (Leave Against Medical Advice) and get done with it.
Sadly, just as their fate on the roads, there is no one to keep track of their well-being or condition thereafter. Barring a few, even the volunteers or NGOs which rescue these mentally-unstable destitutes and admit them to the casualty ward of the hospital do not follow up about their situation.
As per the information obtained through RTI Act, around 46 mentally-ill destitute patients have gone missing from the hospital in the last over two-and-a-half years from January 1, 2023 to September 10, 2025.
Sources attributed this to inadequate care, lack of surveillance and real-time monitoring of such mentally-ill destitute patients at the hospital. They said when such patients are rescued and admitted to the casualty, the in-charge doctor makes requisition to the psychiatric department but the latter reportedly delay in attending the call. Subsequently, these patients manage to flee the hospital despite the deployment of nurses, attendants and security personnel who do not bother to keep an eye on them.
In fact, the reported increase in the number of mentally-unstable destitutes in the city can be attributed to poor monitoring and treatment by the hospital, which gives them scope to escape the facility. The streets too aren’t very kind to such people as men are mostly humiliated while women are reportedly harassed or sexually abused.
On September 4 last year, a 22-year-old woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by four miscreants inside an underpass of NH-16 at Jagatpur. On being informed, the PCR van reached the spot but returned without rescuing the woman claiming they did not have any female staff with them.
Following this, two volunteers and some locals rescued the woman and admitted her to SCB MCH. The woman was given primary treatment and a call of consultation was made to the psychiatric department of the hospital. However, just the next day, she was found to have fled. Eventually, just like the other cases, the hospital authorities mentioned her name under LAMA.
Though Jagatpur police verified the CCTV footage of the hospital and circulated her photos besides carrying out search operations, the woman is yet to be traced.
Asked about this issue, a senior doctor of SCB MCH said the mentally-ill destitute patients are fleeing from the casualty due to delay in psychiatric consultation.