22nd November 2014

Courtesy: The Hindu

Where faith matches medicine

Plan to extend model to Puliyampatti where people throng St. Antony’s Church

Treatment of mental illness has witnessed a paradigm shift with community involvement in the southern districts in a big way. The ‘Sivakasi model,’ experimented since 2002, has inspired psychiatrists to replicate it in other districts.

This model is the most viable to treat psychiatric illness as it involves the community, a service organisation and the government. It has also successfully got rid of the stigma associated with mental illness by taking treatment away from medical institutions to the doorstep of patients, says C. Ramasubramanian, State Nodal Officer, District Mental Health Programme.

It all began in 2002 when a group of psychiatrists, led by Dr. Ramasubramanian, began the free mental health camp, with the involvement of Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations (SSSSO), Tamil Nadu, M. S. Chellamuthu Trust and Research Foundation, Madurai, and local philanthropists. It is organised on the fourth Sunday of every month.

In the beginning, patients from Virudhunagar district attended the camp where free consultation, medicines for one month and food are provided. Now, patients from seven southern districts benefit from it. The added feature is the presence of District Differently Abled Rehabilitation Officer to sanction maintenance grant, identity card and bus pass to persons with mental illness. The all-India president of SSSSO, V. Srinivasan, said at the 150th camp that similar camps would be organised in all districts of Tamil Nadu. The M. S. Chellamuthu Trust will train volunteers for the camps.

Problems of follow up, absence of local psychiatrists, after-effects of medicine and expenditure are addressed in the Sivakasi model. Volunteers of the service organisation are trained as lay counsellors by exposing them to causes, symptoms and myths of mental illness; medicines and their side-effects and how to identify relapse, says K. S. P. Janardhan Babu of M. S. Chellamuthu Trust. A reliable monitoring mechanism has been put in place by entrusting 10 families of mentally ill persons to each of the trained volunteers, who make periodic home visits. Efforts are on to provide vocational rehabilitation locally for those cured of their illness.

An amalgam of the Sivakasi model and the ‘Dava Duva’ model of Mira Datar Dargah of Ahmedabad is the ‘Margamum Maruthuvamum’ model, a marriage of faith and medicine.

The trust plans to extend this model to Puliyampatti in Tuticorin district where people throng the St. Antony’s Church to get their mental illness cured, says Mr. Babu.