Engulfed in the controversy over inhumane treatment for the second time again, the State-owned premier medical college and hospital — Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) administration — has written to all the Head of the Departments (HODs) of the institute to identify and prepare a list of mentally-ill patients sitting outside their units.

According to the communiqué, a week time has been given to the HODs to prepare the list. As per the RIMS acting Director Dr RK Srivastava all such mentally challenged patients will be shifted to Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry and Allied Sciences (RINPAS) for advance medical treatment, presently staying here inside the RIMS.

“I have issued an instruction to all the HODs to seriously take a note of this issue. All departments within a week will submit the details of mentally-challenged patients especially their numbers residing outside their respective wards. After compiling the details, in a phase-wise manner, all such patients will be shifted for a specialised medical care at RINPAS,” Srivastava said.

The Director added attempts are being made to coordinate with RINPAS officials regarding preliminary arrangements there for such patients. “A few of them have been already shifted to RINPAS. looking at the present status, it has become more than mandatory for us to shift these patients who have made RIMS corridor as their permanent homes. Nuisance is created by these mentally challenged patients only,” he said.

In the meantime, RINPAS which is facing several hurdles on different frontages is finding difficult to accommodate the mentally challenged patients, transferred from RIMS. “We are making attempts to somehow adjust the mentally ill patients shifted from RIMS for a temporary period but constrains like human-resource crunch especially the delay in appointing trained nurses is paving great difficulty regarding this direction. However, as a government body, we have to abide by the regulations,” said Director RINPAS Dr Shubash Soren.

Soren further added that in most of the cases, maximum patients are homeless or else are fully-dependent on others for all their work, at times, it also becomes difficult for the hospital administration to handle such cases.

The recent video that showed a security guard manhandling a woman has again raised a question on providing a secure place to such homeless mentally-ill patients. Earlier, during the tenure of former RIMS Director, Bl Sherwal, a mentally-challenged middle aged woman was served food on the floor which received much criticism from people. Taking into account that incident, over eight to ten, mentally challenged patients were shifted to RINPAS then.

At present, uncountable number of patients suffering from mental ailments from several years has made narrow RIMS corridors their permanent home. Under the hospital administration’s nose, all mentally ill patients sleep in the corridors on floors, dirtying the place while adding on to the problems of regular patients.

With every passing day, the numbers of such patients are increasing while the hospital administration seems to be hardly concerned about this issue.