Dr M Sarada Menon
1923-2021

Sarada Menon was born before India's independence, on 5 April 1923. She was India's first woman psychiatrist, and the founder of the Schizophrenia Research Foundation. She passed away recently on 5 Dec, 2021.
She was a final-year medical student in Madras in the 1950s, when she visited a mental hospital. In those days, there was very little understanding of mental illness. The patients were filthy and uncared for, and no-one knew how to help them when they became aggressive or violent. Dr Menon was perturbed by the indignity of their lives, and felt that she “must do something”. That moment of empathy was the first step in her life-long effort to transform the lives of mentally ill people.
Today, mental illness does not carry (or should not carry) the stigma that it did more than 50 years ago. Today's psychologists and psychiatrists enable many mentally ill people to lead useful and productive lives. Importantly, they also enable them to try and lead independent lives.
The eighth and last daughter of Malayali parents, she was born in Mangalore but studied later in Chennai when her father moved there. She studied medicine in Madras Medical College, one of the very few women to study medicine in those days. After realising the plight of the patients she met in the mental hospital, she went on to specialise in psychiatry at Bangalore’s India Institute of Mental Health (now called NIMHANS).
In those days it was common for mentally ill patients to be sedated or subjected to electric shocks to calm them down when they became violent. They were locked in rooms for long periods and not allowed to go out and exercise in fresh air. Often they were abandoned by their families so that they did not even have any social interaction.
Slowly these attitudes changed. Dr Menon was one of the early practitioners who helped change the mind-set of people towards mental health. Drugs were often very effective in helping mentally ill people to lead an active and independent life. Importantly, such people needed sympathetic employers so that they could also become financially independent and not a burden on their family. Also, the hospital wards and premises needed to be a calm place where the patients could get better and feel secure.
Dr Menon made all this possible at the Government Kilpauk Mental Hospital in Madras, when she was the superintendent. Patients were treated humanely and the place became a rehabilitation centre with a great degree of success. An out-patient department was set up, and a day care centre where families could leave patients for the day. Social workers were brought in to act as a bridge between patients and doctors; and the mentally ill were coaxed back into a life of self-independence and work. Because of Dr Menon's efforts, the Tamil Nadu Government opened psychiatry centres in all district hospitals.
She is remembered not only as an institution builder but as a teacher and practitioner who inspired future generations of psychiatrists.
Even today there is a lot of ignorance about mentally ill people and how to treat them kindly and compassionately. There is also a social stigma around mental health issues; many people do not want to admit that their close family member has mental health issues. However, things are slowly changing and people are being more sensitised to the fact that mental health problems are treatable through a combination of medicines and therapy. Dr Menon was one of the scientists responsible for this visible change. 
Dr Menon was also keenly aware of the fact that families of mentally ill people have a very difficult life, with very little soial support. She was responsible for starting AASHA, a community-based organization to help such families in Chennai. In fact, she converted one of the rooms in her own house into a shelter for such needy people. Later, in 1984, along with a few like-minded people, she founded Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF), a non-profit non governmental organization, for the rehabilitation of people afflicted with schizophrenia and other mental diseases. She also recognised the stress on prisoners living in cramped and unhealthy prisons and was a member of a committee that proposed various prison reforms, especially with a view to improve the mental and physical health of prisoners. 
Dr Menon has won many awards, including the Padma Bhushan by the Indian government in 1992. This simple and compassionate psychiatrist and social worker died at the age of 98 on Dec 5, 2021, leaving behind a great legacy and many grateful patients and their families.
BOX on SCARF
Over the years, SCARF has developed into a full-fledged research base and is one of the few Indian institutions recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a Collaborating Center for Mental Health Research and Training. The organization provides temporary shelters and telepsychiatric therapy, runs vocational training centers aimed at the rehabilitation of patients and manages a mobile clinic. They also facilitate employment and conduct awareness campaigns and research projects regularly.
END OF BOX
BOX: Her own words on mental health patients:
"These people can be made whole. Mental illness is like any other illness. Response to treatment should not be sidelined from the mainstream of medicine. If treatment is not given properly, relapses occur. About 20 per cent recover well fully, 60 per cent need rehabilitation to come back to original state, 20 per cent do not recover. Even with this 20 per cent one can work on their residual ability and tap their resources to a constructive goal. When we can tolerate a drunkard, why not a schizophrenic? Give affection. Be considerate."
Sources: Newspaper sources and Wikipedia