Faith healing centres for mentally ill to be monitored

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 10. The Union Health Ministry today decided to map out all the ``faith healing'' centres frequented by psychiatric patients.

This follows the recent tragedy at Erwadi in Tamil Nadu, where several mentally ill died in a fire in such a centre.

The review meeting presided over by the Union Health Minister, Dr. C.P.Thakur, also decided to convene a meeting of State Health Secretaries and District Collectors to work out the modalities for an effective implementation of the guidelines issued recently for maintenance of minimum standards in mental health set-ups and to monitor places of ``faith healing''.

The Director-in-charge of the emergency relief in the Ministry, Dr. B.M.Das, who had gone to Erwadi, has reported that only about 100 out of the 600 patients housed in the 17 hutments around the Dargah had been taken back to their homes and that the remaining had been stranded.

An official press release said the Centre was toying with the idea of exempting from custom duties certain drugs, for the treatment of mental ailments and that a Rs. 155-crore project has been chalked out in the Tenth Plan period, which envisaged a major improvement of the infrastructure for the treatment and care of mentally ill.

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Section  : National
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