Check this out and add to the comments

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/15/20110103201101030853502491dd077d5/Health-chiefs-raise-alarm-on-masina%E2%80%99s-house-of-horrors.html

SUB: CARE OF DESTITUTE, MENTALLY CHALLENGED WOMAN IN VADODARA

Excerpts of an open letter to the Collector, Vadodara, from some groups there.

Subject:  Care of Destitute, Mentally Challenged Women in the District

This is to bring to your notice our struggles to access care for a destitute, mentally challenged woman in Vadodara City.

On May 20, 2011 we were approached by a compassionate citizen to look into the situation of this ‘Unknown Woman’ sitting on Old Padra Road (Rajvee Tower junction) since several weeks.  That day she was observed by this citizen without any lower garments and with what seemed to  her, like a massive growth in her genital area.  Because her own humanitarian sensibilities were extremely disturbed, she approached us.

That started the endless rounds for our team.  From May 20, our team approached/visited the following institutions:

1. A home for such destitute women – we were told that before they could accept such women, they needed a Gynaec certificate and a Psychiatric Certificate.
2. OP Road Police Station
3. Mental Hospital, Kareli Baug
4. Gynaec. Dept., SSG Hospital
5. Psychaitry Dept., SSG Hospital
6. Emergency Dept., SSG Hospital
7. Magistrate’s Office at Nyay Mandir.

At almost every point, we encountered  a tendency to not accept responsibility and to shunt the woman out of the institution. The Mental Hospital/Psychiatry dept asserted that her Gynaec condition had to be treated first. The Gynaec. Dept stated that her third degree uterine proplapse was not an emergency and that her mental treatment had to be started first. The woman and our team were like ping pong balls.

Finally at 5 am morning, after a whole day and whole night effort,  on May 25, 2011, after shunting between the Magistrate’s office (twice), the Mental Hospital, (thrice), The Emergency Dept. (twice) and the Gynaec. Dept. (twice), we managed to get her transferred to the Psychiatry Dept.,  after admission and  referral from the Mental Hospital at 3.30 am. Our team and the poor disturbed woman had been on the road since 11 am on May 24. She is now admitted in Ward 14 under Psychiatric care.

Since yesterday, May 26, the Mental Hospital is threatening to withdraw the attendants that they had provided for the woman. The Psychiatry Dept. and the Gynaec. Dept.  in SSG Hospital will not keep patients without attendants.

Our expectation from you is that you direct the Mental hospital, as she is formally admitted there, to provide all care including attendants, till her treatment is complete.

This is the case of one woman. There are other women that our team has identified on Old Padra Road and near Khande Rao Market.

Our questions are as follows:

1. Who’s responsibility is it to provide care for such women? Which institution’s? Care to be specified as compassionate competent care that respects the dignity and safety of such women.
2. How can different departments shunt such women from their doorstep? Who will ensure that immediate care is provided until longer term solutions are arranged?
3. Does the SSG Hospital have no provision for  single destitute  women who need treatment, if they are without an attendant?
4. Can your office ensure a systematic identification of such women without infringing on their human rights and a system of care for them?

We are willing to work with you on this issue.

Woman without a past or a future

This came from a friend Sayyah in Maharashtra.

MK was found on the road in a village of Maharashtra and brought by a ‘good Samaritan’ to a Home for mentally ill destitute women in 2007. We would have liked to talk to her; that is what we do but it is not possible because this is a woman without a past or a future.

The Home has a visiting psychiatrist, resident nurses, psychiatric social workers and many times even a psychologist who look after the women rescued from the roads. The psychiatrist had diagnosed MK with Mental Retardation with Behavioral Problems… overly talkative, excessively cheerful, she did not seem to understand what was being told to her, her responses were inappropriate. She had grandiose ideas; she thought she was a police inspector! She reported that her family had blamed her for their misfortunes and had asked her to leave. The social workers sent her family letters and postcards at an address she gave but the Indian Postal Service sent those back, stamped with failure. We do not know anything more of her past.

At the Home, MK was feared for she had great tempers boiling inside. She did not make many close friends, preferring to be outdoors and engaged in hard, manual work rather than women’s work inside the cool shelters of home. She had the strength of many men, it is told, being large and strong in constitution, so she voluntarily participated in the construction work underway at the Home that was expanding to accommodate those like her; ‘mental’ women. She planted the gardens of the Home that have grown tall and straight today. However she was stubborn about her chores indoors or attending the prayer sessions, she fought with everyone, she did not like to socialize, rather she would talk to herself, do badbad, laugh inappropriately. She wanted to be married, a young woman like her, not yet 30. But a home for women has no men.

In fits of rage, she would try to run away from the Home. How could MK survive the rigours of the world outside the walls? The social workers had to track her down and then persuade her to come back. Sometimes she would be beyond persuasion. Then for her own good they would be obliged to bring her back anyway … but she was so strong, two-three men could not hold her down. Battle-weary, they found they could not handle her uncontrollable violence after two years. In January 2009, she was to be sent to the mental hospital , equipped to deal with violent cases like hers.

The court order, required to commit someone to a mental hospital, was followed through clearly. She was accompanied by a psychiatric social worker who recounted in front of the court that MK is psychiatrically ill and needs hospitalization. Two doctors, one the personal doctor of the patient from the Home, the other an external, neutral party, both though from the local Mental Hospital gave (almost similarly - worded) accounts as to her mental state. The district magistrate spoke to her in person and found her responses insensible. On January 23, 2009, under Section 20 and 22 of the Mental Health Act, MK was committed to the famous local Mental Hospital, situated half a kilometer away from the even-more-famous Jail for three months.

It is doubtful if anyone visited MK during her stay at the mental hospital, certainly not her psychiatrist or anyone from the Home. In the first week of March 2009, the Mental Hospital contacted the Home that MKs health was in critical condition and she would need to be shifted to the local General Hospital. A social worker and the nurse from the Home visited her before she could be shifted. She was sitting propped up in her bed, eyes dull but still cogent that she had visitors from the Home. She had partially healed scars on her arms. MK, the one with the strength of many men, seemed unable to support her own weight, as if her back would not hold her upright again.

Within the week, MK died in the care of the Mental Hopital.

Cause of death- unknown.

No death certificate has been issued.