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SAMARTHYA,
in association with BasicNeeds India, started a Mental Health
and Development programme in Raichur, Koppal and Uttara Kannada
Districts this year. This formal arrangement with BasicNeeds
has been witness to its own set of human stories.
The programme operates with two primary objectives:
to provide appropriate mental health care and treatment to
the mentally ill; and to build capacities of people with mental
illness and their families so that they can be integrated
into mainstream society.
Highlights
2002
SAMARTHYA intervened in the lives of 91 people
with mental illnesses. Apart from referrals and rehabilitation,
each intervention has allowed bridges to be built within families
and with immediate neighbours.
Collaborators :
SAMARTHYA has developed links with various resource
personnel and organisations for the treatment and rehabilitation
of the mentally ill. These include Dr. Ajay Kumar, a private
practitioner from Hospet, the Raichur District Hospital, the
Karnataka Institute of Mental Health (KIMH), Dharwad; Vijayanagar
Institute of Mental Sciences, Bellary; and NIMHANS, Bangalore.
Medicine Boxes for
the Illiterate :
In the past, we have had the problem of illiterate
family members giving clients the wrong medication because
they were unable to read the labels. SAMARTHYA has now designed
a medicine box with three compartments in different colours
for morning, noon and night-time medicines.
| “When I saw my daughter's face swell up and speech
slur, I was angry with the SAMARTHYA worker. I thought
he had misguided me. I realised later that I had given
her the wrong medication. The medicine box they have designed
makes it easy to understand which medicine to give my
daughter, when.’ Malumbi's mother, Deodurg |
Mental Health Forums Set Up :
Mental Health Forums were facilitated in Koppal, Haliyal
and Manvi. These forums are networks of NGO's and CBO's which
share t | 