“I always had a very low opinion of the work we do. Because, every time I see a mentally ill patient wandering on the road, I realise that I am not doing enough,” says psychiatrist Bharat Vatwani who is one of the two Indians to be awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award this year.
The 60-year-old doctor hopes that the award will now bring much-needed attention to his cause of rehabilitating and reuniting the mentally ill, who have wandered away, with their families.
“We don’t pick up beggars or homeless who know their way around. The mentally ill are out there on the roads because they can’t find their way back. They get lost because of being delusional,” says Dr. Vatwani, an alumnus of the Grant Medical College and GS Medical College in Mumbai.
The Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation that he started with his wife Smitha, also a psychiatrist, has reunited nearly 7000 mentally ill wanderers with their families since 1997. Back then, the facility was in a small bungalow in Mumbai’s Dahisar area.
By 2006, the foundation moved to Karjat, on a 6.5-acre plot that Dr. Vatwani bought with donations. He has a staff of 20 social workers, eight nurses and three other doctors. They take the patient to their hometown with minimal details and dig out more with the help of the police and locals.
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What does this award mean for the work that you have been doing?
It has come as a surprise. I have always maintained a very low profile and concentrated on my work. But this recognition means awareness about mental health is increasing and my cause will get noticed even more. I hope that more people start working in this field.
What motivated you to do this work?
The first turning point came way back in the early 1990s when I and my wife spotted a young, skinny boy on the roadside drinking water from a gutter with a coconut shell. The scene was disturbing. We picked up the boy, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and treated him at our nursing home in Borivali. It turned out that he was a B.Sc. graduate who had wandered because of his illness. The second turning point came when I met Baba Amte at Anandwan. He inspired me to expand my work. That was a trigger for me to move Shraddha Foundation to Karjat.
What does India lack as far as mental health is concerned?
We lack awareness about mental illness. A lot of people depend on rituals and temple visits instead of treatment. We lack mental health facilities equipped with qualified doctors.
