The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : A double blow for these caring parents

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Thursday, Jun 26, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

A double blow for these caring parents

— Photo: K. Ganesan

Tale of woe: Members of Subiksham that works to minimise the impact of rising prices on urban families with mentally ill persons.

“We can go without food. But we will not allow our children to go without medicines. Our daily prayer is that they should predecease us.”

This is the sad refrain of parents who passionately take care of their children with mental retardation or mental illness. It is a tight rope walk for them as they have to provide for the family on the one side and buy medicines and pay for the caretakers on the other. Price escalation has worsened their traumatic lives.

Thirty-seven-year-old S. Malliga of Othakadai is a diabetic. This is a result of the stress she had to undergo in taking care of her 15-year-old mentally ill son. She works as domestic help and her husband is a daily wage earner. The family manages to earn around Rs. 1,500 a month of which over Rs. 500 is spent on medicines for the son. The Rs.2-a-kg-rice supplied in ration shops and occasional supplies from her mother in Ramanathapuram help her to sustain the family of three with at least one meal a day.

It is a similar situation for S. Thiagarajan (name changed on request), a medical practitioner, who is a city resident. He spends a minimum of Rs. 3,000 a month on medicines for his mentally ill daughter. “My wife prepares sambar or rasam for two days. As we do not have a refrigerator at home, we heat them whenever we eat. It is strictly one vegetable for two days. That way we are able to minimise the impact of inflation and spend more time with our daughter. We eagerly look forward to family functions to have good food,” he says.

The expenditure goes up for those who have grown up children. A caretaker is employed at a cost of Rs. 200 a day.

“We are forced to meet frequent demands for more money and other privileges from caretakers who feel that the parents have abandoned the child. But the truth is that by employing a caretaker we protect ourselves from becoming psychological wrecks,” says N. Saraswathi (name changed), who has a daughter with mental illness.

The prices of psychiatric medicines have gone up by 10 to 40 per cent in the last four months alone, points out R. Subramaniam, another parent with a mentally ill child.

“We cannot make any compromise on the medicines. Some doctors insist that only drugs manufactured by particular companies, known for their quality, should be used. This means shelling out more money.” In an era of children sending their elderly parents to old age homes, these parents take care of their children even after retirement. “Imagine the case of children with obsessive compulsive neurosis. They will want a new car to be bought instantaneously. Any delay will enrage them. And so parents even go to the extent of buying cars by borrowing money,” says a psychiatrist.

In an effort to cushion the impact of inflation, the M. S. Chellamuthu Trust and Research Foundation has formed two organisations – ‘Subiksham’ for urban parents and ‘Nambikkai’ for rural parents.

These two organisations collect donations to buy medicines at wholesale rates and distribute them among the members free of cost. The prices of psychiatric medicines can be brought down by providing exemption from 4 per cent value added tax, feel office-bearers of Subiksham.

At present, the most worrying factor for all these parents is the survival of their child after their demise.

“I cannot even ask my other children to take care of my sick daughter,” says Ms. Saraswathi.

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