Click to play videoMumbai: World Disability was celebrated with good spirit and cheer by the specially abled on December 3. However, for those suffering from mental illness, there were not many reasons to celebrate.
Thirty-three-year-old ex-public sector employee, Edward D’Cunha, had to quit his job nine years ago from the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, an illness that triggers off delusions.
However, Edward still has a wish. “The Government should give me an alternate job from which I can gain satisfaction. I want a job that allows me to easily do my duties without hindrances that my sickness could cause. I want to use my full potential for the job,” says Edward.
Edward's father Stanley has been fighting to reinstate him in the SCI for well over four years without any recourse.
The source of Stanley's anxiety is the Disability Act of 1995 that lists mental illness as a disability.
Section 33 of the Act which talks about a three per cent quota in Government jobs for the visually and aurally impaired, and those with loco-motor disability, but there is no mention for the mentally ill.
The reason as stated by some as in the words of psychiatrist/ founder, NGO Maitri, Harish Shetty is that “we forget that emotionally disability and intellectually disability can be seen, certified and also implemented.”
So while the specially abled may have reasons to rejoice about, the pleas of the mental illness sufferers have yet to fall on the right ears.
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