THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If spending life in a mental health centre after recovering from an illness is the cruellest ordeal, then more than 10,000 people are suffering exactly that in Kerala, because of the inordinate delay in getting rehabilitated. They are forced to live like prisoners in closed and inhuman environments at the state’s 125 psychosocial rehabilitation centres and three mental health centres approved by the Social Justice Department (SJD).
The department had launched the Prathyasa Project in 2019 to rehabilitate cured patients from other states, but only 150 could be reunited with their families in the past two years. “The low number shows how inadequate the programme is. There are more than 10,500 patients in various homes and another 3,000 in private centres. They are in various stages of rehabilitation. Around 30% of them are from other states.
They are voiceless and the government should come up with programmes so that they are integrated into their families and society,” said Kerala State Mental Health Authority member Fr George Joshua.
Family apathy forces patients to stay at rehab centres
“A majority of the patients are stuck at rehab centres because families are not ready to take them back. The psychiatry wing of the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital had implemented a model rehabilitation programme for the cured.
As part of that, they offer home care to the rehabilitated. It can be replicated across the state. Instead of locking them up, they can be rehabilitated in their homes,” Fr Joshua added. Prathyasa is being implemented by the SJD with the help of NGOs. The state government has sanctioned around Rs 29.29 lakh for the scheme.
“A total of 150 patients have been rehabilitated since the launch of the project. Initially, we ran the programme with the help of an NGO based in Ernakulam and they rehabilitated around 118 cured patients during 2019-2020. We have deployed two more NGOs. For the Thiruvananthapuram zone, we have entered into an agreement with a Kollambased NGO. We allotted funds to the NGO in February,” said an official.
Inadequate funds
Elizabeth Sebastian of Divya Karunya Charitable Trust, an NGO which has done 124 of the total 150 rehabilitations as part of the Prathyasa scheme, said the state government’s fund is inadequate to rehabilitate patients from other states. “I accompany the cured patients to their homeland and the amount sanctioned by the government is very less.
For local transportation, the government allots Rs 500 while the actual amount we spend is much more. For the past two months, we didn’t rehabilitate anyone due to a lack of funds. We suffered a loss of more than Rs 3 lakh as we couldn’t produce the bill,” said Elizabeth, who has been rehabilitating patients for the past 24 years.
Forensic ward
There are around 300 recovered patients at the Mental Health Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. The efforts to rehabilitate them drag on. The worst hit are the patients admitted to the forensic ward. Three patients are learnt to have completed 30 years at the forensic ward one of the worst wards at the MHC in terms of facilities.
“People who get admitted to the forensic ward request us to send them back to prison as life there is better compared to the Mental Health Centre. They serve tea in a vessel at the MHC as if the patients are animals as they don’t want to open the cells during tea time,” said advocate and activist J Sandhya.
Prathyasa project
150 cured patients were united under Prathyasa scheme since 2019
125 psychosocial rehabilitation centres are functioning in the state under social justice department