Doctor at Ratnagiri Regional Mental Hospital gets Aadhar Card for 45 patients

A patient finishing up formalities for Aadhaar card with the aid of medical superintendent Dr Vilas Bhailume in the blue shirt at the Regional Mental Hospital in RatnagiriHeres a doctor going beyond the call of duty Dr Vilas Bhailume is the medical superintendent of the Ratnagiri Regional Mental Hospital but continuing in a vein similar to his stint at Pune he is attempting to give an identity to those patients who have none and while at it get them enrolled for Aadhaar so they can avail benefits afforded to those with the government identity cardSpeaking to midday Dr Bhailume said I have around 45 unidentified patients 29 females 16 males between 4090 years old with psychiatry problems admitted here Some of them have been at the hospital for five years some 50 years but seldom has anyone come to meet them Hence I decided to get their name enrolled for Aadhaar so they would be on the government records at leastCamp heldBhaimule added I was corresponding with collector P Pradeep who agreed to the idea and gave the necessary instructions to ensure that the Aadhaar team would visit the hospital and help in finishing the formalities Finally the camp was held earlier this weekExplaining the process he said When unidentified patients are brought to the hospital usually found by the police loitering on the roads we give them a pseudonym based on certain identifiers like the region they were found in or their physical attributes That is the name that we are using on the Aadhaar cards for these 45 patients and the address for them will be the hospital Thus this will become their permanent identity However he clarified If and when their relatives are traced necessary changes upon verification will be made to this documentCounting your successesHe added We have recently managed to trace the family of a 45yearold woman patient who hailed from Tamil Nadu Now the attendant will accompany the woman to her relatives as they are very poor and cannot afford to come to Ratnagiri the superintendent saidHowever it was not an easy camp to pull off said Dr Bhaimule explaining Some patients were so restless that our staff had to actually help them in getting their finger prints scanned and ensuring that they kept their head straight while being photographed Unlike regularAadhaar cases which get recorded in minutes on an average here they had to spend over halfanhour per patientBut he is no novice to this as he carried out a similar camp in the Pune hospital in 2014 I had carried out a similar Aadhaar drive for the psychiatrist patients a firstofitskind across India and had got nearly 150 patients registered for Aadhaar cardsAuthorities heap praiseAccording to Dr S Raokande medical superintendent Thane Regional Hospital On an average nearly 25 per cent of the patients brought in by the police as unidentified and do not speak as they are usually in advanced stages of their ailments Dr Sadhana Tayade Joint Director Health Services Maharashtra added We have cases in all four hospitals where patients have been staying for over four decades What we need is active participation from law and judiciary social welfare NGOs instead of merely expecting the hospital team to do everythingApplauding the initiative Dr Sanjay Kumavat former deputy director of mental health Maharashtra said Aadhaar cards for citizens are a basic civic right irrespective of their physical or mental health This should be put into practice immediately at all mental hospitals in the state