Rita, Mita recovering in hospital
Mita (L) and Rita
Dr Aninun Nahar Rita and Nurunnahar Mita, the two young sisters suffering from Schizophrenia, are back to hospital again. This time they have fallen seriously ill after refusing all foods but water for more than a month. Rita and Mita had been admitted to Bangladesh Medical College and Hospital last Saturday, said their doctor Mahmood Hasan, head of psychiatry department of BMCH. Their condition was improving, he said. The physician said the two sisters lived on nothing but water for 40 days before they were brought to the hospital. They had been living in complete isolation and refusing to let anyone in their Mirpur residence, he said examining their condition. The two sisters made news headlines first in 2005 when they were discovered suffering from serious mental illness and bedridden due to long self-imposed isolation. It was shocking to learn that the two educated sisters shut themselves off from the rest of the world because of their Schizophrenic condition and long neglect from their living family members. They have lost their parents long ago. Rita, a medical graduate, had worked in the department of Histopathology at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University before her illness led her to quit the job. Mita studied Engineering in the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet). Both sisters lived on income from their family furniture shop Woodland Doors and Furniture. Dr Hasan said the two sisters have been suffering from a serious mental illness called Schizophrenia, a disease that makes them distort reality. They cannot separate illusion from reality. Schizophrenia is a lifelong mental illness and patients need to take continuous medication for a long time to avoid relapses. That time they recovered after being treated at hospital for eight months. They returned home and started living near normal life. They relapsed again in 2007 after they stopped taking the medicines, the doctor said. Again they recovered after medical treatment for two and a half months. The sisters relapsed again last week and the reason was the same -- they stopped taking medication. "Their discontinuation of the medication is what led to the relapse," said Dr Hasan adding that it was also what caused them to relapse the first time. Even at Intensive Care Unit Rita is almost out of danger, said Dr Hasan while Mita who is being treated for urine infection in the general ward. When she was brought to the hospital Rita was in serious condition due to the lack of food and she could hardly speak, Hasan said. Mita talked incoherently, the doctor said, adding that sometimes it was difficult to understand her. "She has been saying that their eldest sister, Kamrun Nahar Hena, is going to kill both of them," Hasan told The Daily Star. However their mental condition is slowly improving and the doctors at BMCH are hopeful that both sisters will be released from the hospital within three to four weeks. According to Adv Elina Khan, executive director, Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights (BSEHR), called for family care for the sisters. Her organisation has been involved in the welfare of the sisters since the discovery of their illness and isolation. "Their older sister, Hena, will have to take care of them," Elina Khan told The Daily Star in answer to what will happen once they are released from BMCH, adding, "It is a continuous cycle, they get well and then relapse again and they need someone to make sure that both women continue to take their medicine."
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