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Thanks to the Union Health Minister Shatrughan Sinha, mathematician Bashistha Narayan Singh (56) who is suffering from schizophrenia can avail free medical treatment at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Shahadara, New Delhi.
Family members of Singh told rediff.com they got a verbal assurance from the health minister that the central government would bear the entire expense of the treatment.
In the late 1990s, following the intervention of the then Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, Singh was admitted to the National Institute of Mental Health and Science in Bangalore. When he returned in 1998, the state government could not continue his treatment due to paucity of funds.
In April, the then Union health minister C P Thakur promised free treatment to Singh at the IHBAS.
After doctors in Patna examined him in April he was again referred to the IHBAS.
At present he lives without appropriate medical care at his ancestral home at Basantpur village in Bhojpur district, about 60 km from Patna.
Sources said the state government was yet to respond to the deteriorating health of Singh.
The University of California, Berkeley, in the United States had invited Singh, who impressed his teachers at the Patna Science College in the early 1960s when he solved a mathematics problem in six to seven ways, for research.
He left the US and returned to Bihar in 1976, after which his health continued to deteriorate.
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