NEW DELHI: “I had lost all hope of seeing my sister again. The fact that it’s happening must be the result of some good deeds that I had done,” said the younger brother of a 39-year-old woman, who had gone missing from her home town Nagaon in Assam and had mysteriously landed up at Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) in the capital 10 months ago.
The woman, who could not even reveal her name or the place where she had come from, was brought to the institute last year on July 21 by the police after she was found to be suffering from some mental ailment.
Having been diagnosed with schizophrenia (a serious mental illness that affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves), she was put on medication. “After three months, she told us about her in-laws, husband and the name of the village from where she had come,” said professor in psychiatry and deputy medical superintendent Dr Om Prakash.
Subsequently, she told the doctors that she was a mother of three children and had separated from her husband. Hence, her in-laws were not cooperating with the authorities in providing any information about her. “We contacted the district authorities and our team also visited the place to find out about her family’s whereabouts,” said Dr Om Prakash, adding that after a lot of efforts by the institute, resident commissioner of Assam Bhawan and district authorities, she was finally reunited with the family on Friday after being stabilised for her psychiatric condition.
At present, she is in a state of remission, said Dr Om Prakash.
“She weighed just 30 kg and was frail when she came to the institute. She won’t talk to anyone, nor eat anything. She was very happy today to see her brothers and excited to go home. Her weight is now about 74 kg and she is very fit,” said a junior resident at the department of psychiatry, Dr Charvi Kalra.
The woman told TOI over phone that she would first meet her parents and then visit her in-laws’ place to meet her children – two sons and one daughter. She said she had left home to go to Kerala to meet her brother but doesn’t know how she landed up in Delhi. “Finally, I’ll be returning home,” she said.
The director, IHBAS, Dr Rajendra K Dhamija, told TOI that in 2021, the institute re-united 33 patients, including 14 women, with their families, while in 2020, 24 patients were reunited with their family members.
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