Award to help focus on mentally-afflicted destitutes

A mass movement is needed to highlight the plight of mentally-afflicted destitute on our roads, Ramon Magsaysay Award winner Dr Bharat Vatwani said on Friday.

"I am hopeful that this award will help bring the focus on the mentally-afflicted destitute on our roads," Vatwani told PTI over phone from his shelter home for such people at Karjat in adjoining Raigad district.

Expressing his elation on being selected for the prestigious award, the Mumbai-based psychiatrist said this was a major international recognition of his work.

Vatwani, among the two winners from India of this year's Ramon Magsaysay Award, said a "mission-mode movement" is needed to help mentally-afflicted destitute.

He said it was a chance encounter in a restaurant that started him and his wife Smitha, also a psychiatrist, on their journey.

"We noticed a man whose behaviour and mannerisms left us in no doubt that he had schizophrenia. He picked up an empty coconut shell from the road, scooped out some gutter water with it to drink," he said.

They rushed to him and asked him if he would come with them as they could help him. The man did, and months later, the couple reunited him with his family in Andhra Pradesh. It turned out the man was a science graduate who had completed a course in pathology.

Vatwani (60) a resident of north Mumbai suburb Borivali, registered his Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation in 1991. In 2007, he opened the Shraddha Rehabilitation Home at Karjat with help of Smitha who works at a Mumbai hospital.

"I feel extremely happy that my work has been acknowledged at the international level. I hope that the award, regarded as the Asian version of the Nobel Prize, will help focus society's attention on mentally-afflicted destitute and create awareness to help cure schizophrenic patients," Vatwani said.

The psychiatrist said that at any point of time, his Karjat-based shelter houses as many as 120 schizophrenics for treatment.

"If a schizophrenic patient is treated properly, then it takes about two months to cure him. We have so far reunited around 7,000 destitute schizophrenics with their families in last three decades," he said.

"This year, we have, through our foundation, helped reunite 485 such people after curing them," he said.

Vatwani, a fan of social activist late Baba Amte, said the government and society need to work together to treat this illness. "The need of the hour is to detect it at the initial stage itself," he said.

Born in Kolkata, Vatwani landed in Mumbai at the age of five. He pursued the MBBS course from the government-run J J hospital and did his MD course from the KEM hospital here. The Vatwani couple, having a biological daughter, has also adopted three children two boys and a girl from the Missionaries of Charity in suburban Vile Parle here.

Established in 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is Asia's highest honour. It celebrates the memory and leadership example of the third Philippine president after whom the award is named, and is given every year to individuals or organisations in Asia who manifest the same selfless service and transformative influence that ruled the life of the late and beloved Filipino leader.

This year's Magsaysay Award winners will each receive a certificate, a medallion bearing the likeness of the late President, and a cash prize. They will be formally conferred the Magsaysay Award during formal presentation ceremonies to be held on August 31, 2018 at the Cultural Centre of the Philippines.