Glimpses Of Manasadhara

A boon for the mentally challenged.

- Veena Mohan Adige

It is sad but true that mental illnesses are on the rise. However, some like depression, tendency to commit suicide, slow learning and other such illnesses are curable, given the right treatment at the right time.

That is what Manasdhara in Shivamogga in Karnataka is striving to do. And, going by their records, the rate of getting cured is very high. This hospital is over-crowded with patients, being diagnosed and treated. In a single day there are at least about a thousand people coming from far and near, rural and urban places, with hope in their eyes and belief in their hearts.

“Yes, we get around a thousand patients daily,” says Dr Rajani Pai, the executive director, “We treat every patient differently as the causes and the effects are different in each case. We give them personal attention and most of them get cured in days or weeks. There are facilities for them to stay here and also for their relatives.”

The large hospital is clean and neat the doctors and nurses handling the patients are smiling, cheerful and very observant. Mentally ill individuals are treated and provided support, vocational training and counselling services are given to ensure their reintegration into society. It is a halfway home where they are trained to carry out simple skill-based tasks and learn to live with others. The objective is to equip them with skills needed to rehabilitate them relxes with society so that they will not be a burden to the others.

Considered as one of the biggest private mental health centres in South India, Manasa Nursing Home has a 100-bed in-patient facility. Dr Ashok Pai and his colleagues have treated a mind-boggling number of patients so far – over one lakh seventy-five thousand. They have also meticulously documented all the case histories. This makes Manasa Nursing Home an incomparable archival centre in mental health and also a veritable treasure house of direct clinical experience.