Substitute for Resolution no. 13045-L.S.-G., dated the 17th December 1930.
No. 1028-L. S.-G.
GOVERNMENT OF BIHAR AND ORISSA
(MINISTRY OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT).
RESOLUTION.
Patna, the 24th January 1931.
Triennial report on the working of the Ranchi Indian Mental Hospital for the years
1927, 1928 and 1929.
READ—
The triennial report on the Indian Mental Hospital at Ranchi for the years 1927—29.
As the last triennial report covered the years 1924—26 and the Indian
Mental Hospital at Ranchi was not opened till September 1925, this is the
first complete triennial report of the working of this institution, to the main-
tenance of which the Government of Bengal contribute three quarters and
the Government of Bihar and Orissa one quarter of the cost.
2. The total number of patients which the hospital was built to accom-
modate is 1,014 male and 272 female, i.e., 1,286 in all, and of this total
accommodation three quarters is reserved for patients from Bengal. The
Superintendent has emphasised the difficulties experienced throughout the
triennium owing to shortage of accommodation and that the total number of
beds is 162 less than the combined total of the three hospitals which it
supplanted. The number of male patients on the 1st of January of each of the
three years under review was in excess of the scheduled accommodation by
156, 146 and 51, respectively; and though the number of female patients was
always less than the accommodation provided for them the overcrowding of
male patients has constituted a very difficult administrative problem. Of the
total number of male patients, nearly half have every year been criminals, and
numerous patients, dangerous as well as non-dangerous, have had to be refused
admission every year. Government with the assistance of the Managing
Committee have attempted to solve this problem of congestion in various ways.
A scheme of expansion has been worked out which, when complete effect is
given to it, will provide for 1,600 patients, this is the largest number with
which, in Government's opinion, a single institution under one administrative
head can deal effectively. The scheme provides for the construction of
various buildings, including dangerous and quiet patients' blocks, paying
patients' wards, a border line block, a recreation room and so on. But the
serious financial difficulties with which both Governments are now faced has
made it impracticable to find the capital cost of any of the new buildings. The
necessity of providing attendants' quarters simultaneously with every increase
in the number of beds adds greatly to the capital cost of expansion ; and in
the present financial situation the problem of finding the recurring cost is
even more serious. Plans and estimates are however now ready for almost
all the additional buildings so that there need be no delay in constructing
them when funds are available. Meanwhile a serious attempt has been made,
not without success, to discharge to the care of friends and relatives
the class of incurable but harmless patients who formed such a large proportion
of the inmates when the institution was opened. Magistrates have also been
given definite instructions to avoid sending this type of patients for admis-
sion; and it is due to these efforts that the progressive decrease in the excess of
male patients over the scheduled accommodation must be ascribed. Govern-
ment have permitted the Superintendent to admit fifty patients in excess of
this standard, but such admissions are confined rigidly to dangerous patients,
most of them confined in jails.