Man Chained In Puri Hospital: OHRC Sought Report From CDMO, Railway Police

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has sought a detail report from Chief District Medical Officer and Superintendent of Railway Police, Cuttack over ill-treatment to a mentally retarded person in Puri District Head Quarter Hospital.

Acting on a petition of rights activist Akhand of Civil Society Forum on Human Rights (CSFHR), the Commission has sought the report from the authorities within three weeks.

The petitioner stated that an unknown mentally retarded person was admitted into the DHH, Puri on 20 September under fetters like a hardcore criminal by the Government Railway Police (GRP).

The man was tied with a cycle chain to his legs and hands on 20 September, he said.

Neither the police nor the medical staff unchained the man, which is a gross violation of his human rights and from the next day of his admission into the hospital, the man is missing due to the negligence of the security and hospital authorities, alleged Akhand.

The petitioner presented before the Commission an illustration of a verdict of the  apex court (In Chandan Kumar v. State of West Bengal) that denounced this practice and ordered the cessation of the practice of tying up the patients who were unruly or not physically controllable with iron chains and ordered medical treatment for these patients.

National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) also has advised all the Chief Ministers to submit a certificate stating no person with mental illness are kept chained in either government and private institutions

Again Human Rights and Mental Health Act, 1987 says that “No mentally ill persons shall be subjected to treatment to any indignity whether physical or mental or cruelty”, informed Akhand.