Addicts find escape in water

Bhardawadi Hospital, administered by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Hospital (BMC), houses four de-addition centres – one run by the BMC and the others by charitable trusts and non-governmental organisations.

However, ever since the corroded pipe went bust on March 31, the hospital has been asking its patients to fetch water from a private residential building next door and later from an outlet in the compound.

Activity at the hospital now centres around daily ablutions instead of helping the 100-odd inmates work through withdrawal symptoms, bringing rehabilitation almost to a standstill, doctors reveal. No new in-patients are being admitted andtherapy has taken a backseat.

Rajesh Mishra, a patient, explains the routine. “We have been lugging buckets at least five times a day for ourselves as well as other patients who are too weak to help themselves.” Another patient, Basu Jeet, says the exercise begins at 7 am and stretches to 10 pm at regular intervals of three to four hours.

At first, inmates dragged pails to the neighbouring building owned by the BMC, and filled water from taps in the compound. Later, a makeshift pipe was installed, connecting the flat of a doctor at the rehab centre with an outlet in the hospital’s compound.

Each de-addiction centre has a security guard posted at the main entrance and closely scrutinises persons seeking access. However, since inmates assigned to collect water are allowed free access, the two patients who escaped had no difficulty.

Explaining the predicament, the hospital’s Medical Officer Dr R B Bachhav told Express Newsline that the corroded pipe supplying water to the premises gave way lastTuesday. The pipe, he claims, could not be replaced due to a funds crunch during the financial year ending March 31. “Water supply will be restored in the next two days,” Dr Bachhav said.

A doctor from one of the de-addiction centres, requesting anonymity, says he has made several representations to the medical officer, but was told that the maintenance department of the BMC’s `K’ ward was supposed to attend to the problem. Patients say scaffolding has been erected around the corroded pipe and they cannot fathom why the work has been delayed.

Asked why patients were told to fetch water, a doctor said since three of the four de-addiction centres are run by private charitable trusts and NGOs, they cannot afford to hire private labourers.

“We have no option but to allow patients to collect water for themselves. Almost all of them are physically and mentally unfit,” remarks a medical counsellor. The hospital, meanwhile, is a mess. Puddles of water mark the corridors, lifts and wards of the five-storeybuilding, forcing patients to hop, skip and jump between the clean patches. And with a `financial crunch’ thwarting attempts to replace a single rusty pipe, there’s no saying when the curtain will ring down on this circus.