Mentally ill patients rescued

Jan 03, 2012 |

Age Correspondent

Thrissur

More than 40 mentally ill patients, some of them in chains and some with festering wounds from tethers, were rescued from an unlicensed rehab centre at Karor in the district in Kerala on Monday, in a raid by the district medical officer.

Patients, including old women and children, were housed in sheds without roofs. Some bore marks of physical torture.
Sources said some of them were beaten, stripped and humiliated in squalid conditions.
“The scene was horrendous,” said the district medical officer, Dr V.V. Venus, who led the raid. The centre did not have doctors, psychologists or qualified nurses on board.
“There wasn’t even a clean toilet. All inmates were confined to tents, some without even proper roofing. Even animals would be kept in better conditions,” she told this newspaper.
The Peramangalam police registered a case and arrested the owner of the rehabilitation centre, Mr Thalikkulam Joshy and his wife Alfonsa. Police suspects that the centre was a fake charity, set up by the duo to make money from donations within the country and abroad.
The rehabilitation centre was identified by the district medical officials during a survey, “Impact Thrissur”, aimed at identifying and rectifying health-related issues in the district.
Once they found that the centre did not have a licence and inmates were ill-treated, they submitted a report to the district chief judicial magistrate.
The magistrate, Mr P.S. Antony, on Monday directed the DMO to rescue the inmates with the help of city police commissioner.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/117203" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-7e8bd546b289817d5774503e34204760" value="form-7e8bd546b289817d5774503e34204760" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88839810" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>