Pick up and Reunion of Mentally Ill Destitute and Old people with their Families in Rajur, Ahmednagar

OLD AGE HOME

The old bear the brunt of our changing lifestyles, values and priorities. To protect these affected and needy senior citizens, we have built an old age home in the village Kalungan, Akole, Taluk, District Ahmednagar, Maharashtra with a capacity of 200 inmates. Currently, we have 52 inmates at the old age home and we want to increase number. Built in the memory of Nanasaheb Vithoba Deshmukh, the 3 acre home is set amidst the Sahyadri range. Mount Kalsubai provides a scenic backdrop to this spacious and lush shelter. There is no specific geographic limitation when it comes to this old age home. We admit those people older than 60 years who have been either abandoned by their relatives or their relatives are not in a position to take care of them.

PICK UP AND REUNION

Neptune Foundation is actively working to pick up mentally ill destitute wandering in the streets of Thane, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Kalyan. We aim to reunite people who are completely recovered with their families once traced or admit them in any ashram or our old age home if the criteria permit us. Our aim is to make Maharashtra a good place to live in for the mentally ill destitute. We derive an immense satisfaction from reuniting people with their families after they have recovered after undergoing treatment at Regional Mental Hospital . Till date, we have done 227 pickups and 179 reunions. TMH has approached us for a mass reunion request as they have 200 outstation cases of patients from different parts of India who are ready for reunification, but because of proper addresses and lack of funds, this process is on hold.

OLD AGE HOME

52 inmates are already staying here free of cost. A kitchen is operational where hot and fresh food is cooked for these elderly. We also have a Goshala in which we rear cows that give fresh milk for the Ashram. The second phase of implementation would be to increase the number of residents. This is possible as the building can accommodate up to 200 elderly. We only need to procure some basic furniture such as beds and cupboards, and increase the number of staff.

PICK UP AND REUNION

We are doing pick-ups and reunions and we have a dedicated team to handle the legal formalities for admission and reunion related matters. Once we get a call to our helpline number, we send our team to trace the person. Our team is also equipped to handle the extremely violent cases. Once the person is traced, we take him to the nearest police station and do all the necessary legal formalities with them. Once the formalities are done at the police station, we take the person to Regional Mental Hospital. Once the patient is examined by TMH, we take him for his medical tests wherever TMH advised us to do so. We then take the patient to the court with the help of Police and get an order to admit the patient in TMH.

Neptune Foundation team is committed to trace the whereabouts of the recovered patients and reunite them with their families. We meet the recovered patients at TMH who speaks different languages and try to locate their address. From the little details we gather from the patients and TMH, we approach the police stations near to the area mentioned by the patient and with the help of the Police and Grampanchayat of the respective area/state, we get the contact details of the patient’s relatives. Our team speaks to the relatives and convinces them about the patient and requests them to visit and take back the patient, with us providing all financial support to them. If the patient’s relatives are not in a position to visit Mumbai, our team, along with one or two members of the staff as decided by TMH, visit them.

We believe strongly that it is our responsibility to give back to the society and hence, we have built an old age home where these elderly can lead a life of dignity with all their needs of food, clothing , shelter and medication being taken care of completely free of cost. We engage these elderly in various activities like Yoga , meditation and prayers so their time is well utilised and they get mental peace. We have also built a Mandir in the premise of our old age home to meet their spiritual needs. We want them to feel that old age home is their home away from the real home.

Also, we try our best to reunite the mentally ill with their families, so that they can live in an emotionally secure environment.