PUDUKKOTTAI: A 24-year-old woman from Rajasthan pursuing final year in MBBS at Pudukkottai Government Medical College and Hospital took to social media to help a 45-year-old mentally ill woman, whom she met during medical rounds, reunite with her family in Maharashtra recently.
Medical student Pramila Bishnoi first met the mentally ill woman at the hospital on September 27. The latter was among 59 patients who were shifted to the medical college hospital from a mental healthcare facility functioning out of the Annavasal government hospital after Minister for Health Ma Subramanian during an inspection in July this year ordered the NGO-run unit to be shut over alleged poor care and maintenance.
Striking a rapport with the woman receiving psychiatric treatment by conversing in Hindi, Pramila learnt from her that she hailed from Jalgaon district in Maharashtra, and that she was married with two sons. The woman also told her how she boarded a wrong train some three years ago and was stranded since in Pudukkottai without possession of details to contact her family members.
Pramila soon turned to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to share the patient’s details and waited for leads to trace the latter’s family. The tweet went viral, and was subsequently spotted by the patient’s friend. The friend through a video call confirmed the woman’s identity and connected the patient with her husband last Friday.
“When her family members connected with her on a video call, her entire village was happy to see her alive,” Pramila told TNIE. After the video call, the patient’s family came down to Pudukkottai to reunite with her on Saturday.
Medical college Dean G A Rajmohan said, “The woman’s family members said they had lodged a missing complaint with the local police and thought she was no longer alive. When her condition improved with psychiatric treatment, she recollected her house address.”
When enquired with the Annavasal police of any efforts to establish the woman patient’s identity, they said no such complaint was made. An RPF official in Pudukkottai, too, expressed ignorance of the woman’s plight and assured to check past records.