The Bombay high court on Wednesday directed the State Mental Health Authority (SMHA) and the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority (MSLSA) to submit before it a list of patients who had been declared medically fit for discharge from mental health institutions, but their families refused to accept them. The court also sought details about those patients who were reunited with their kin.
The list should have data about the number of patients, dates of their admissions, duration of stay at institutions, doctors’ opinions on mental fitness before discharge, and the patients’ present status, a division bench of justice Nitin Jamdar and justice Abhay Ahuja said in their order.
The bench was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty, who had drawn the court’s attention to those languishing in hospitals after being rejected by their families though they had completely recovered from the illness. Dr Shetty had also sought implementation of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, which stipulates rehabilitation of such patients.
Advocate Milind Todkar, representing MSLSA, said it had, in all, data of 569 patients who were reunited with their families, but it did not have a separate figure for private and government hospitals. MSLSA would get the data segregated and place it before the court, he said. MSLSA’s submission was in response to the HC’s direction in the previous hearing.
The petitioner’s counsel, Pariniti Mehra, and the amicus curiae, J P Sen, told the bench that the issue was acute in government hospitals.
The bench was further informed by Todkar that though there was a National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) scheme in 2015 for offering legal services to mentally ill and mentally disabled persons, it was not updated as per the Mental Health Act, 2017, and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. Hence, MSLSA had sent a communication to NALSA, asking it to make the scheme in consonance with the law, he said.
Senior advocate Vishwajeet Sawant, appearing for SMHA, said a round-the-clock toll-free helpline had been set up for families of mentally ill patients. He further said a government notification for creating a fund for SMHA was issued on March 10.
After hearing the submissions, the bench asked MSLSA and SMHA to work in coordination for implementation of the NALSA scheme and provide the data of patients.
Hearing on the petition will continue on June 16.