Gruhalakshmi aid helps woman sustain psychiatric care: case study
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A case study highlighting how financial assistance provided under the Karnataka government’s Gruhalakshmi scheme helped a 40-year-old woman continue treatment for a chronic psychiatric disorder has been published in the Digital Journal of Clinical Medicine, brought out by the Elsevier publication for JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research (JSSAHER).
The case study concerns Girija (name changed), the third child of parents who were in a second-degree consanguineous marriage. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has been undergoing treatment for the past 25 years.
A homemaker who has been married for 22 years, she belongs to a nuclear family from a lower socio-economic background. Her husband works as a daily wage labourer, while their 21-year-old unmarried son is unemployed and dependent on alcohol.
Her psychiatric condition worsened amid financial stress in the household, particularly those arising from her son’s substance use. Advised for additional medication, her expenditure on psychotropic medicine was about ₹1,000 per month. She also incurred ₹160 to ₹260 a month in travel expenses to the hospital and loss of about ₹500 in daily wages during hospital visits, as she works periodically.
Despite the financial pressures, she was able to continue psychiatric treatment with the help of financial assistance received under Gruhalakshmi, a State government welfare scheme that provides ₹2,000 a month to eligible women identified as the heads of households.
The case report noted that the patient’s illness was episodic and therefore did not qualify for the government’s disability benefits. However, she requires medication on a lifelong basis. Although medicines are provided free of cost at government hospitals, the recommended medication was not consistently available at the hospital in her town and was available only intermittently at the district hospital, according to the report.
“Women with severe mental illness face compounded vulnerability due to gender-based economic dependence, limited workforce participation and caregiving responsibilities. In such contexts, social welfare schemes aimed at women may serve as critical enablers of mental health care access,” said the case report authored by Mathumitha A. and Kishor M. of JSSAHER.
While there has hardly been any research on social aid focussing on women in mental health, the authors said that, in this case, despite substantial household financial stress and the caregiving burden associated with a family member’s alcohol dependence, the woman was able to maintain continuity of psychiatric treatment through the financial autonomy provided by a State-sponsored welfare benefit.
“This autonomy reduced reliance on family members, mitigated treatment interruption, and potentially prevented further clinical deterioration,” the report said.
The abstract of the case report describes mental health disorders as a “major global public health challenge”, affecting more than a billion people worldwide. Depressive and bipolar spectrum disorders, in particular, contribute substantially to disability and reduced quality of life, it noted.
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