Panjim: A week after police rescued a vulnerable mentally ill woman from Panjim and dropped her to her brother’s home in Siolim, she is now back on the streets at Sao Tome area of the capital city.
The woman is a widow and comes from a poor family and for years had been sleeping at the bus stop at the roundabout in Siolim. For the last two months she had been wandering along the road behind the old Secretariat and the Panjim Church lane. At night she would sleep near an electrical store in Sao Tome.
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Following Herald TV reportage, she was rescued by the police on February 28, and was dropped at her brother’s place in Siolim. However, on Tuesday she was seen on the streets of SaoTome.
According to Street Providence founder Donald Fernandes, the woman’s brother before the police had expressed his inability to take care of her.
“I had personally spoken to police officers requesting them to admit the woman to the Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour (IPHB) in Bambolim as she needs psychiatric as well as medical help. I had expressed my readiness to admit her in the shelter home run by me and had urged police to get an affidavit signed from her brother. But the lethargic police did nothing and today she is back on the streets,” Fernandes said.
“We cannot rescue such people from the streets as there are norms. But none of the government authorities concerned are providing any help,” he added.
Fernandes reiterated the police plan to create a team in both the districts with designated officers, who can coordinate with the Street Providence to help the homeless people.
A senior police officer at the Panaji Police Station said that he will ask his staff to “check and do the needful.”
Earlier in the day, NGO Street Providence admitted a homeless old man named Richard Lopes from Chinchinim to its shelter home on Tuesday after it received a written request from Velim MLA Cruz Silva and the local panchayat.
