BENGALURU: In a matter of grave concern, 55 patients who had come for consultation to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Nihmans) and Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology went missing from January 1, 2024 to August 14, 2025. Of them, three are yet to be traced and handed back to their families.
The majority of them went missing at the most unexpected moments -- when their caretakers were collecting bills, buying medications, busy with phone calls or even while sharing their experiences with others in the OPD.
As per the missing persons record at the Siddapura police station in Jayanagar, Kadappa Rodannavar (81) went missing from NIMHANS on May 23, 2024 and Munikrishnappa (70) on November 6, 2025. Similarly, Shantaswamy (52) went missing on April 30, 2025 from Kidwai hospital premises. They have remained untraced.
Dr Arvind HR, Deputy Medical Superintendent, NIMHANS, said, “People with mental health illness have a tendency to run away and we trace them and hand them back to their family members. We also have an Incident Reporting Committee at the hospital that looks into missing person cases. In most instances, patients who go missing suffer mainly from schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, while some would have been diagnosed with dementia.”
Not supposed to give uniforms to mentally ill patients as per Act: Doc
“We are guided by the Mental Healthcare Act 2017 in which patients are no longer treated as asylums and are not supposed to be given any uniform to identify them,” Dr Arvind added.
He advised caretakers to keep an eye on the patients when they bring them to OPD for consultation and treatment. “Even our security guards watch the movements of patients within the premises. We make a lot of effort to trace them despite the campus being huge,” he added.
Kidwai Director Dr Naveen T said, “Majority of the patients who come to Kidwai suffer from third or fourth stage of cancer, which means the disease would have spread to most parts of the body.
We ensure that we admit, treat and provide psychosocial support so that they don’t lose hope or go missing. To see that people don’t go missing and access treatment, Karnataka has set up District Daycare Chemotherapy Centres in 16 districts.”
Dr H Chandrashekar, Practising Psychiatrist at ESIC Medical College in Bengaluru, said, “Once patients go missing either from hospitals or homes, they suffer both mentally and physically. Men might be physically harmed by people around them and women might be sexually abused. In rare cases, caretakers leave them on hospital premises.
There are many reasons why patients with mental illness go missing, including lack of awareness, lack of treatment facilities, stigma, family issues and poverty. Family members don’t have closure in such cases.” The Bengaluru police have been trained to be first responders, tasked with the responsibility of taking individuals at risk due to mental illness into protection and not custody.
A police officer said, “Whenever missing cases of patients with mental health illness and other health issues are reported, we make efforts to trace them through the field operations platform that provides us the real-time data via CCTV cameras. We also share their photos with NGOs that work for homeless people with mental illness. We keep tabs on incidents of unnatural death and try to match the missing person’s identity.
At times, it takes just a day to trace a person, while in other cases a month or more. There have been instances of people being found even after a year and traced in other states.”
Missing data
2025
22 patients from NIMHANS, 3 from Kidwai went missing
2024
27 patients from NIMHANS and 3 from Kidwai went missing