A disturbing trend in Kerala.

If spending life in a mental health centre after recovering from the illness is a cruel ordeal then more than 10,000 persons suffer 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.

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.

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. Home care is offered to the rehabilitated and such homes can be replicated throughout the state with the help of the NGOs.

As of now, there's an extreme shortage of funds; the state government's funding is inadequate for the purpose.

Forensic ward

For the reasons cited above, the efforts to rehabilitate the recovered patients drag on. Three patients of the Forensic Ward of the Mental Medical Health Centre in Thiruvananthapuram are learnt to have completed 30 years! The Forensic ward is the worst in the MHC in terms of facilities. The people who get admitted to these wards request to be sent to prison as life there is better!

"They serve tea in a vessel as if the patients are animals as they don't want to open the cells during teatime", say a witness.

Courtesy. The NIE

My take

There, definitely, needs a big change in our attitude towards helping this hapless section of the society. The earlier, the better.   

Tailpiece.

Got up at 6, the chores and was ready by a quarter to 10. Carried out washing machinex of the bed linen.

It's quite hot, these days, during daytime as well as nighttime.