Mentally-ill women left to live on footpaths

Hyderabad: Ironical it sounds, but the fact is despite all big talks about providing security to women, Hyderabad lacks a rehabilitation home for mentally retarded women, especially those who are distressed and in vulnerable conditions.

Though the State Home at Vengal Rao Nagar run by the Department of Women Development & Child Welfare take in women in need, most of them are victims of atrocities and their admissions are rooted through the police and juvenile departments, that too women in the age group of 18 years to 35 years.

There are also homes for the disabled children but no homes that take care of the mentally ill women and children. It is a common sight in any urban area that mentally sick women roam out in the open, clad in dirty clothes and often bare-bodied, underfed and uncared for.

A woman who is mentally unstable has been living on the footpath near ICOMM, a telecom company at Cherlapally in the State capital for quite a long time. She has been offered food by the nearby petty tea shop and occasional philanthropists.

Until some good Samaritans working with the telecom company provided her a night gown recently, she was lying half naked all through. When this reporter tried to contact some NGOs in order to move her to a home, Bhumika Women Collective, an organisation that works on all women´s issues including domestic violence, found out that there is no home for the mentally challenged women in Hyderabad.

Worse still, there are not even non government organisations that exclusively work for the rehabilitation of these women. Rajyalakshmi, Regional Joint Director of Women & Child Department said, “The women who are mentally ill are not taken in the homes presently run by the department.

There are, in fact, no homes for them. They are not allowed to stay with the normal women who are at the homes. As there is no special home for them, they are taken to Erragadda hospital, and only if those women are certified to stay with the normal women, they might come here.”

Pravallika, counsellor at the Bhumika Women Collective, said, “We had tried the whole day to move the woman who is in need of a roof. But everyone turned us down stating that there are no homes that take in the mentally ill women. Now we are taking this woman to Erragadda hospital for medical check-up. She said her name was Gangamma from Nacharam and that she had a son. We have no more information than this.”

By Suharika K Rachavelpula