‘As per rules, chief of the hospital must be a qualified psychiatrist’.
New Delhi: For the last seven years, a mental hospital in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh—the biggest mental hospital in the entire central region of India—is being headed by a gynaecologist, raising questions and concerns among stakeholders about how serious policymakers were about the well-being of mental patients in India.
Gwalior Mansik Arogyashala (GMA), a 250-bed hospital established in 1935, has not had a “qualified” director for the last many years. The incumbent director Jyoti Bindal, who is an MD in gynaecology, is working as the director of this institution since December 2012.
Last September, after she was appointed as the dean of the Gandhi Medical College, Indore, her visit to Gwalior has “decreased”, an official of the institution said.
When The Sunday Guardian called up the hospital at Gwalior to seek an appointment with Bindal, the official who took the call said that there was no point in coming to Gwalior as she spends most of her time in Indore and comes to Gwalior for a few hours once every two months. This is Bindal’s second tenure as GMA director. She had earlier served as GMA chief in 2007.
Local sources said that as per rules, the chief of the GMA must be a qualified psychiatrist. However, the last trained psychiatrist who headed the institution was way back in 2006. An official source said that it was not Bindal’s fault that she was heading the institution. “Hers was a stop-gap arrangement. The last time a psychiatrist headed the institution was in 2006. After that, a gynaecologist became the director, then an anaesthetist and then a medical officer,” an official recalled.
Sources said that it was because of her proximity to BJP MLA from the region, Yashodhara Raje Scindia, who was a minister in the Shivraj Singh-led BJP government, that Bindal was not disturbed during the BJP rule. After the arrival of the Kamal Nath government, Bindal continued in the same post because of the support from the present Chief Secretary S.R. Mohanty, who is due to retire soon.
The Sunday Guardian reached out to the state health secretary, Madhya Pradesh, and the commissioner of Gwalior, both of whom are members of the management committee of the Gwalior Mansik Arogyashala, for their comments on how a gynaecologist was heading a mental institution, but no response was shared by them.
The Sunday Guardian also shared its queries with the National Human Rights Commission, which as per a Supreme Court order, is required to keep an eye on the working of this Gwalior-based institution. However, no response was received from them.