Chennai: For the first time, inmates of the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) in Kilpauk, were allowed to participate in the electoral process as the authorities, aided by expert screening by the hospital doctors, selected 156 of them to cast their votes as they were found to have the basic information and the capacity to make a choice.
The 156, including 56 women, lined up patiently in the scorching summer heat, to cast their votes and thereby created a history of sorts as perhaps the first case of such mentally challenged patients being permitted to exercise franchise. The IMH falls under Central Chennai constituency where the main flight is between former Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran of the DMK and Sam Paul of the PMK backed by the AIADMK and BJP. Kameela Nasser of MNM of Kamal Haasan is also in the fray here.
PTI reports: After casting his vote, a 37-year-old man, battling schizophrenia for the last seven years, said when he stood near the EVM, he reminisced about the 2001 assembly elections, the last time he voted. "I felt special. I was very happy to vote," he said. He was all praise for students of the Loyola College and Election Commission officials for conducting awareness programmes and mock polls on the hospital premises ahead of elections.
IMH Director Dr P Poorna Chandrika was elated over the exercise being conducted in the hospital. "This is the first time in the country that such patients are voting and also for the first time an auxillary polling booth is being set up inside a mental hospital," she told PTI.
The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences in Bengaluru and Calcutta Mental Hospital also have voters list, but it is not known if they have done something like this, she added. The exercise to add the inmates' names to the electoral roll was initiated in February this year, the director said, adding patients were chosen based on their decision-making capacity.
"The components we considered to screen the patients include knowledge of the election process, their thoughts, language and how relevant conversations they can have," Dr Poorna Chandrika said.
The 156 inmates, certified "fit-to-vote" in their case sheet, have been either cured or are undergoing treatment. Some are employed inside the hospital while others at the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services in the city, according to hospital officials. After casting his vote, another inmate expressed interest to vote in the 2021 State assembly polls. He has a diploma in mechanical engineering and wanted government to offer job opportunities to inmates who are skilled and qualified.
"Much of the time we are confined to our wards. I want to get out and do something useful. Government must give opportunities for us too," an inmate, who was admitted to the hospital four months ago, said.
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