Clothe mental patients: Kerala High Court

Kochi: The Kerala High Court has held that none of the psychiatric pati-ents, even those showing acute suicidal tendencies, should be kept nude in a secluded cell at the mental health centers (MHC). The court stressed the need for providing suitable material, which would make it impossible for patients to use it to snuff out their own life.

Justice K. Vinod Chandran also asked the MHCs to constitute a committee to place a patient nude in rare cases and if allowed they should not be exposed to anyone of the opposite sex including hospital staff.

Pointing to the poor conditions at the MHCs, the court obser-ved that the position is same all over the country. The court issued the directives on a plea pointing to the practice of confining the mentally challenged patie-nts with suicidal tendencies nude. Any man or woman in the society would not like their private parts to be exposed to any other person without consent, it observed.

“Confinement in cells that too nude would only result in the more torture,” the HC held. “Rehabilitation intends to enable them to get out of depressive mental state and to provide an environment more conducive to their existence. But such measures cannot be without ensuring the basic dignity of an individual,” the HC said.

Everyone entitled to privacy

The Kerala High Court ruled that any person, whether mentally stable or otherwise, is entitled to an amount of privacy, at least, to cover his/her body not exposing it to the public or even to the few doctors and attendants visiting them.
During arguments, several suggestions were made including from Kerala Psychiatric Society for the betterment of MHCs.

The court asked the superintendents to direct issue specific orders regarding the dress. It made director general of prisons and correctional services an additional respondent and asked him to convene a meeting in a month to consider the availability of space for providing rehabilitation center in each prison for housing the inmates released from the MHCs before they are allowed to mix with the general population. The court also asked DGP to send a convict to an MHC with proper medical history.