'30 percent inmates mentally ill'

BANGALORE: Many inmates at the Beggars' Colony were mentally ill and not even in a position to bathe on their own.

They urinated on the bed or wherever they were.

Some of those who escaped from the colony said the mentallyill inmates were rarely brought out of the halls.

Kishore Kumar, a psychiatrist at NIMHANS who treated the inmates at the colony once in a fortnight, said more than 30 per cent of the inmates were mentally ill.

According to this percentage, more than 750 men and women living there were mentally ill.

They were attended to by one doctor and two nurses.

"It is impossible for a doctor to treat more than 6070 patients properly in a day," said a doctor who was deputed to the colony on the condition of anonymity.

"We treated the patients and prescribed medicines," said Kumar. "The wardens were entrusted with the task of giving medicines."

He said there was one hall to house the mentallyill women and one to house the men.

"There was only one warden to look after each hall," he said. "How can they administer medicines to all the patients?"

He said they took some chronic cases to NIMHANS and that some of them were cured of their illness.

"I still don't know why so many people were brought here when the infrastructure is inadequate," he said.