Mental health in a mindless state

KOCHI: The recent raid on a mental asylum in Thrissur has exposed the state of NGO-run and privately-owned mental asylums in the state.   Dearth of government-run homes and the government negligence towards the NGO or privately-owned asylums, in terms of assistance and regulation, are seen  as reasons behind the pathetic state of the mental health institutions in the state. A performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on the mental healthcare in Kerala states that the state government had not  formulated any plan to implement the objectives of the Mental Health Policy  2000. In fact, of the `9.98 crore received during 2005-06, 2008-09 period from   the Central Government for implementation of schemes under the national mental health programme, `4.07 crore remains unutilised till March 2010. The audit report has come at a time when the mental health asylums in the state are reeling under fund shortage. “Most of the existing government-run homes house more than their capacity.   In such a scenario, the NGOs and charitable homes crop up to meet the demand. The government may not have the capacity to take care of all the mentally-ill. But, when there are NGOs providing both manpower and infrastructure, the government could provide at least assistance in terms of medicine or health personnel,” said Chithra Vishwanath, managing director of  Mehac Foundation, a decentralised community-based mental health NGO. NGOs, like Mehac, have evolved unique community-based mental health programmes, which rather than isolating the mentally-ill looks at providing  medical assistance to families and institutions housing the mentally-ill.“There is an acute shortage of doctors in most of these institutions and hence there is no regular treatment. This lack of assistance results in families abandoning the mentally-ill at asylums. If proper guidance and assistance are provided, then many of these families are willing to take care of their mentally-disabled members,” she said. As per the CAG report, manpower shortage in the government mental health centres ranges between 64 and 94 percent. The absence of monitoring mechanism and inspections along with the government laxity on issuing licences to the asylums are other reasons  cited for the state of the asylums in state.