This story was shared by Ellen SS ...
Ajji had been living on the streets for about 20 years or so. She was recognized as somebody who needed treatment when she was eating food off a dustbin, but somebody found that her english speaking skills were terrific. She had been abandoned by her hubby and her children did not even bother to think of her. Her daughter who came to see her body after her death hardly had any remorse in her eyes even as she came to see her mother's body. Ajji’s hubby was a lecturer at a PUC college and made good money with private tuitions. When I came to this asylum as a volunteer, to my horror, this was worse than hell itself- anybody's nightmare. I was completely convinced that institutionalization only made people go from bad to worse.
No would never work here, nor in many places like this all over India. I was seriously aghast at the way these psychiatrists treat the very people who trust them so much and ruin their lives with their professional negativity and overmedication focussed on symptom treatment and nothing else. The doctor was only interested in making money and nothing else. Every week he collected huge amounts of money from nursing colleges; In return for the money, he forced ECT upon those clients who were outspoken and protested against the things he did on the pretext that they hadn't recovered. He did this so that the nurses-to-be in training would have an opportunity to understand how ECT was performed. These were demonstration rackets involving nursing colleges. Once I asked him what happened to the people who received ECT- This doctor replied in a matter of fact manner 'Well, their brains get fried'. The social workers said Ajji had been found wandering on the streets of xxxxx speaking perfect english and shouting abuses at strangers in impeccable cum absolutely grammatical English. She was brought here for treatment. When she was brought she was violent owing to the life she had led on the streets for more than a decade with no family to call her own. She was cleaned with strips of coconut barks dipped in coconut oil to remove the dirty grease that stuck to her skin. She was then caught hold of by the professional social workers here and given a hot water bath and some hot food to eat. Then she was asked to stay in a corner and shut up because people could not understand why she was so rude to the others in her speech. The great doctor failed to investigate why she became what she became and wouldn't have cared to find out either. When I spoke to her and tried cognitive behavior therapy, it did not work. How could therapies that were victim blaming and advocated a 'healthy adjustment to the environment' despite the fact that the environment had been thoroughly pathological, ever have a positive impact on clients. Did it address their lived realities? People kept teasing her and the mental patients in the asylum fought with her and earned her wrath.
Ajji spent all her time abusing the others who first abused her and as I could see she had every reason to be angry. The others always provoked her to entertain themselves. She complained about a horrible pain in her tummy. When she told the doctor about this he said 'you are a liar- you are only saying this to attract attention'. She endured the pain for about 4 months and then when it became terrible one day she refused to eat her food. There was just one asylum nurse for a hundred patients and her name was sister zzzzz. She addressed the patients with statements like 'you donkey - come and take this medicine and you monkey, eat your food. If you die I will be held responsible' etc. One fine day I heard Ajji had urinated and defecated when I was at the top floor observing the clients. Then I said to another woman client that we should take dettol and clean her up. When we went down with a bottle of dettol we found Ajji was lying on her back with her tummy completely swollen. It was a case of hernia and the intestine was protruding from the stomach a little. The doctor who was examining her said she would not live after he tapped various parts of her body. I told the chief doctor of the asylum over the phone that Ajji was dying and needed an ambulance if there were to be any hope of her reviving her. He sent an ambulance. The previous night when the nurse reported that Ajji wasn't eating the same doctor had said, 'If you play all these dramas we shall have to force feed you with a tube which we will insert into your mouth or nose'. While she ate hesitantly, the hernia that had been ignored for quite sometime gave way, and a part of her intestine protruded out of her stomach by noon the next day. When the ambulance came finally and I was lifting Ajji and making her rest against my body in the van, the social workers kept quarelling with each other as to who should accompany Ajji to the hospital. 'It is not my business it is yours ' said each social worker to the other. On the way she was taken to some hospital which I don't remember and the doctor tapped Ajji's body and said she would not live. I was concerned even as I saw how dignified Ajji was even in her pain. She had tightly shut her eyes as though this were to be part of some bad dream- not once did the word 'pain' cross her lips.
When we finally reached the hospital and took her to the emergency ward I heard the sister with me give a call to the asylum chief on her mobile and say 'This woman will not live - shall I prepare the death certificate?’ The chief said that they were to make sure her body is not released to her relatives until they have paid all the money for the care they gave all these months. I was so angry: what was the care he had given her- abuses, scoldings, negation of her reality of pain, utter neglect of the hernia. And this is the man who comes out in public and talks about 'the legal rights of the mentally ill'.
What happenned to Ajji finally? She was on a ventilator for three whole days and cared nothing about her pain. All she asked me when I went to see her for three days even as she lay dying was 'Have you had your breakfast my child? You know i am supremely happy because my daughter has come to see me!!' and the next thing I knew was she said 'my children, my children, my children' even as she passed away. She was full of concern for a daughter who cared not what happened to her mother. Was she cared for in this institution run by xxx? No! She had only been retraumatized and forced to die of a mental cum physical torture. When she told the chief doctor that she had a stomach problem and loose motions he said 'Prove to me that you have loose motions by shitting on your plate and showing me the shit’.
This happens in such places, so don’t recommend asylum to anyone.
