Antara is a mental health hospital located on the outskirts of Kolkata, India. It is operated by the Antara Society. Antara was established in 1971 and got Registered in 1972 by a group of like minded psychiatrists and other mental health professionals.
Organisation and administration
Antaragram is operated by the charitable trust Antara. Prior to the establishment of Antaragram, the group of founders including Dr. Satrujit Dasgupta, Maj. R B Davis, P M John, and Bro Andrew along with Mother Teresa and Mar Thoma Church, Calcutta operated an Outpatient Psychiatric Unit in 1971. Next year, the group provided residential facilities to mentally ill patients. From 1982 onward, a need arose to cater to a much larger patient population. Land was purchased in the outskirts of Kolkata to establish the larger Mental Health Hospital. The site was called 'Antaragram'. The foundation stone was laid by Mother Teresa in 1980.
In January, 2013, Times of India reported that a female individual was sent to Antara because she alleged that her family member molested her. The institution admitted her without her consent. The treating psychiatrist was Dr. Payal Roy. Another psychiatrist who previously saw the individual commented: Clarification on the above statement: Adult psychiatric patients can be admitted in a Psychiatric hospital without the patient's consent -- there are provisions for this in the Mental Health Act, 1987. Consent of the patient is not required under special circumstances. Again, in the case of a minor, the patient can be admitted by the guardian, either natural parent or a court-appointed guardian. The patient in question was a minor and she was admitted by her father. Also note, Antara breaks the law by forcefully taking people from their home and taking them to the hospital. Indian laws state that involuntary admission is permissible only in the premises of the hospital. Forcefully taking a person from their residence against their will to the hospital is against the law.
Patients in Antara are sometimes tied to their hospital beds with rope. The staff at Antara fail to mitigate the patient's distress and instead use coercive measures against them. Hospital staff are well known to use aggression against the patients and many staff have antisocial personalities themselves. The doctors are also poorly trained and use outdated medical and psychiatric practices which cause iatrogenic or harmful effects on patients. The patients live in very confined areas and show signs of institutional syndrome and one major problem being positive symptoms. Families with psychiatric patients that don't care about them are left to decay in the psychiatric ward. Another unusual policy that Antara follows is that of DAMA. Even when a patient doesnt medically indicate the hospitalization for over a month, psychiatrist still keep the patients for beyond that time period. Excessive hospitalization can lead to long term negative and positive symptoms and be detrimental to the patient. Key characteristics of the hospital is that hospital staff use coercive approaches against the patients rather than a therapeutic approach.
