CHENNAI: Dr Sarada Menon, India’s first woman psychiatrist and longest serving Superintendent of the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), Kilpauk, died in Chennai on Sunday due to age-related ailments. She was 98.
Menon, who was born in Mangalore, graduated from the Madras Medical College in Chennai. She did her psychiatry training at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru.“She was the longest serving Superintendent at the IMH,” said Dr Thara Srinivasan, psychiatrist. “She served in the post for close to 18 years. She brought about a lot of reforms in the hospital.”
“In 1984, after her retirement, she started SCARF (Schizophrenia Care and Research Foundation) along with some of us. She was an extremely kind and sympathetic person. She was always concerned about patient welfare and care,” Thara added. She recollected that, even a few months before her death, Menon had called up and asked about patients’ health. Menon pioneered efforts to rehabilitate persons with mental disorders at residential centres. “She was particularly interested in rehabilitation. She wanted mental health rehabilitation centres established all over the country,” Thara said.
In her interview with TNIE in 2016, Menon had said, “Enough attention and importance are not given to the subject of rehabilitation. To see that a patient is restored, to his original state of functioning, to his family, and included socially in the best possible manner, is of utmost importance.”Menon was also a very good administrator and strict disciplinarian, but at the same time was extremely considerate and kind, Thara said.
Dr Lakshmi Vijayakumar, founder of Sneha, an organisation that works towards suicide prevention, said Menon was sincere, humble, hardworking and an extremely intelligent person. “She was a fantastic teacher with great clinical acumen, all rooted in care for the patient. A lot of us learned psychiatry from her. She had just retired when I joined college, but she used to take classes for us,” said Lakshmi Vijayakumar.Menon was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 1992. In 2016, she was bestowed with the Avvaiyar Award by the Tamil Nadu government.
‘Great loss’
Chief Minister MK Stalin, in his condolence message said Menon’s death is a great loss to the medical field. He also said she has a special place in the history of treatment of mental health disorders
Psychiatry Pioneer
(Inputs from T Muruganandham)