Rescued from the streets of Kolkata, Dukhini returns to her family in good health
Dukhini Murmu belongs to a tribe from Balichak, East Midnapore, WB. She got married at a very young age. Unfortunately, she was widowed within a few years of the marriage.
She started showing signs of mental illness from when she was young. After losing her husband, she returned to her maternal home. Due to her illness, she often wandered away from home and was found loitering in nearby villages.
On one such instance, she somehow landed up in Kolkata. The police rescued her from the streets. They admitted her to Calcutta Pavlov Govt Mental Hospital under the magisterial order.
As they didn't know her family's whereabouts, she was admitted to the Paripurnata Halfway Home.
She was given psychosocial rehabilitation. She underwent pharmacotherapy and socio-cultural therapies. She was provided free of cost food, clothing, prescribed medicines, and accommodation.
The team at Paripurnata worked hard and succeeded in contacting her family. When they heard about Dukhini, her mother and brother visited her at the half-way home.
The family is poor, and her mother is in poor health. They are however confident in their attitude towards Dukhini. They kept regular contact over the phone and also visited on many occasions.
Initially, the family was quite reluctant in accepting her back due to their poor financial condition. The team counseled them which slowly changed their attitude.
Today Dukhini is back with her loving family. The Paripurnata team keeps a follow-up check to make sure she is recovering well.
Without the support and care of Paripurnata's staff, Dukhini would have spent all her life in the Govt. Mental Hospital. The care she received has helped her return to her family.
You can also help poor patients with mental illness get the help that they deserve. You can donate so that they can get the support which can help them overcome their condition. You can give with confidence because every program listed is GIVEASSURED.
By donating to this program
you will be sponsoring the overall costs incurred to support the beneficiaries
What the beneficiary gets
Program Description
Paripurnata runs a halfway home for patients who suffer from Mental illness. This Half-way Home is a temporary place where the patients who have undergone treatment stay with an aim to adjust to their disease and social environment and learn how to cope with them.
One unit of donation to this program will cover the cost of clothing, toiletries, medicines, training material for occupational therapy, pocket money, outing and exposure visits, expenses for house meetings and family meetings by the staff for one resident for a month.
Paripurnata's rehabilitation programme offers pharmacotherapy, occupational therapy, non-formal education, and counseling.
Women also re-learn cooking, cleaning, shopping and other skills needed for daily living. They are regularly taken out for picnics, tours, and other social gatherings for developing social skills.
The programmes are aimed at enabling the women to develop self-reliance and to gain confidence to participate meaningfully in family and community living.
The home also works to contact the families of the patients and facilitating graded exposures. The staff visits the homes and meets the family and the community to assess their preparedness to accept their ward, and build a therapeutic community, which will support both the mentally ill and the family in the neighborhood.
The duration of time for which the patients stay at the half-way Home is 9-12 years.
When you donate to the program, you will help an underprivileged patient with mental illness get access to a safe shelter during recovery.
Paripurnata Half-Way Home
Program Updates
23 March, 2021
A safe, wholesome and caring environment does wonders for the spirit of ‘the Resident Beneficiaries’.
#3
At the beginning of April 2020, we already were deep in to the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic. The world came crashing down around us. Our primary concern was the well being of our residential beneficiaries. We were forced to take some stringent measures to insulate them against the raging contagion. Most of our activities came to a standstill, barring medical check-ups, medication and counselling. No new inductions and very limited releases were made. Routine therapies could not be held for obvious reasons like near total disruption of public transportation system. Especially, the total withdrawal of local trains impacted the attendance of our staff as most of them commute by these trains.
We had to drastically change our staff shift duty pattern. The front-line care-givers were staying here for six weeks at a stretch by rotation. Other staff members, who do not live very far from the place of work, resorted to cycling. Apart from masks, sanitizers and hand-washes, we invested in spraying / fogging equipment. Visitors were initially prohibited and later restricted. The resident beneficiaries were totally segregated from outside contact.
We are proud to report, that we have been able to keep our wards safe and in fairly good health and cheerful spirit. A few of them, who were on the verge of being discharged, could not be released as their families were unable to travel to take them back. Neither could our staff escort them to their families.
Aided greatly by these few residents, the other residents were kept gainfully active by participating in activities like yoga, singing, painting, dancing, playing indoor games like ludo, chess and carom-boards etc. Special sessions were held on reading of daily newspapers. Music system and the library facilities were available.
Also, the residents by themselves planned and staged a few social and cultural events, which included singing, recitations, dances and reading of essays. Supervision by the staff members was minimal.
These were viewed by the staff and members of Paripurnata in rapt attention through the help of CCTV monitors down stairs and were much appreciated for their ingenuity! The significant programmes are mentioned below :-
i) Rabindra Jayanti. Birth anniversary of the poet Tagore on 8th May 2020.
ii) Independence Day on 15th August 2020.
iii) Diwali on 15th November 2020.
At the beginning of the period under review on 1st April 2020, there were 22 residents and as on 14th December 2020 we have 20 of them. They were released a few days back as their families live not too far from Kolkata.
5 August, 2020
Healing takes time, and asking for help is a courageous step
#2
Healing takes time, and asking for help is a courageous step
The services rendered to the residential beneficiaries include the expenses like food, clothes, up-keep of the hostel accommodation, electricity, plumbing, water supply, toiletry, security etc. and the expenses towards care givers like House Mothers (nursing assistants), Activity Instructors, Psychiatrist and General Physician.The last cycle, ending 31st December 2019 was one of the ‘busiests’. Our calendar was crowded with engagements. This was the festive time apart from this the weather was just ideal for taking out our beneficiaries to the parks and other open spaces around the city for fairs and visiting a few socio-cultural activity sites.
19 November, 2019
Happily engaged in multiple activities
#1
Happily engaged in multiple activities
