Sarada Menon, India's First Woman Psychiatrist, Dies At 98

Sarada Menon death: India's first woman psychiatrist Sarada Menon passed away in Chennai on 5 December. She was 98 years old.

“Her death has left a huge void in our lives. I have known her since 1978 and worked with her for 35 years. A great role model and inspiration to all of us. So human at many levels. Until three months ago, she was talking about her passion, the rehabilitation of the mentally ill," recalled Dr. Thara, fellow psychiatrist with whom Dr. Sarada Menon founded the Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF India) in 1984. It is a non-governmental organization based in Chennai that has been working towards the the rehabilitation of people suffering from Schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

She was born in Mangaluru. She pursued her graduation from Madras Medical College and completed her psychiatry training at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in Bengaluru. She was the longest-serving head of the Institute of Mental Health.

Her stellar professional journey awarded her with Padma Bhushan in 1992.

She said in an interview, "Families are more willing nowadays to meet a psychiatrist, attend mental health centres, and even take a mentally ill person to a function or an outing. nowadays. With better awareness, I am sure it will disappear", she said.

For Lakshmi Vijayakumar, founder of Sneha, she is a rare phenomenon. Even after retirement, she was taking classes for students in psychiatry.

She also credited Dr. Menon for her immense contribution to psychiatry in Tamil Nadu. She had a knack for learning new things and she was always worried about the welfare of her patients.

Dr. Lakshmi also added, “She could just talk to somebody for five minutes and diagnose. She was humble and down-to-earth. She was a clinician par excellence, an administrator par excellence. Persons like her are rare and very difficult to come across.”

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