“Charity care at PGH”

I read "Charity care at PGH” (Events and Personalities, Parsiana, February 7, 2015) about another state-of-the-art hospital coming up on the grounds of the B. D. Petit Parsee General Hospital (PGH).
There are a number of differently abled adults in the community who are unable to take care of themselves and need to be helped or supervised. For many such adults, the only support system is their parents, with no one else to care for them once the parents are gone.
As a parent of one such person, I feel that there is an urgent need for a facility which would provide lifelong care for the challenged adults of the community.
In or about the year 2011 a project was mooted through the good offices of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) where, with planning inputs from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, a full-time residential facility was to be set up for differently abled people of the community. A core group was formed in the BPP to give impetus to the project and meetings were held with the parents of such adults.
In May 2012, there was a gathering at Rustom Baug where about 35 differently abled young adults enjoyed themselves over a three-day period. Dinshaw Mehta, BPP chairman had distributed certificates of appreciation to the participants. In his concluding speech he had mentioned that he would try his level best to get the residential project for these helpless young adults completed at the earliest.
After that we have read about this project off and on in the Parsi Press, but gradually these references stopped. The BPP project unfortunately appears to be in cold storage at present.
I would like to draw attention to the plight of parents like us through this letter and suggest that perhaps a place could be made available for the handicapped to receive lifelong care at the PGH. I sincerely hope that Parsi institutions become sensitized to the plight of such adults who are completely helpless.
RUSTAM SHROFF
profshroff@gmail.com