Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 24

In a novel gesture, a group of students celebrated the festival of Teej with female inmates at Dr Vidya Sagar Institute of Mental Health here. The students of Sri Guru Ram Das College of Nursing associated with Sri Guru Ram Das University of Health sciences applied mehndi on the hands of the inmates and shared sweets with them.

As many as 50 inmates at the mental health institute have been living here for the last over a decade. With most of them from the poor families and with no visitors or family members, it indeed was a nostalgic moment for them.

Nursing tutor at the institute, Charanjit Kaur said, “Apart from a celebration, it was a kind of building of a bond between the nursing students and the patients. We always teach our students that nursing is not a career but a way of life. Being a nurse means caring for the sick and destitute.”

Dr Sawinder Singh, director, Dr Vidya Sagar Institute of Mental Health, said, “We try to provide a homely atmosphere to the inmates. Apart from providing them medical care on daily basis we also help them by organising such events.” Dr Singh said mental health was still a taboo for our society. “The society is slowly becoming sensitive towards patients with mental health issues but we still need to go a long way,” he said, adding that compassion and love are the foremost requirements of a person with mental health issues.