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About Vaishalya Wellness · Palampur, Himachal Pradesh
A place for women to put themselves first.
A women-only residential wellness and rehabilitation centre in the Kangra valley, built for the women this country's mental health system keeps forgetting.
Somewhere in every village here, a woman is being managed instead of treated.
Why we exist
The gap we were built to close.
Vaishalya Wellness did not begin with a business plan. It began with a waiting list that had nowhere to send women.
In years of de-addiction and rehabilitation work across Himachal, the same call kept coming. A father, a husband, a brother, asking where they could take a woman who needed residential care. And there was almost never an honest answer to give them.
Nearly every de-addiction and psychiatric facility in the region is built around men. Where women are admitted at all, it is usually into a corner of a men's facility, with borrowed staff and no privacy. The handful of genuine women's programmes in India sit in metros and price a month of care above what most families in these hills earn in a year. Public facilities are stretched past their limits and carry a stigma few families will risk. So the woman stays home, and the illness is managed quietly, for years.
Mohal, Gugga Saloh Road · Sub-Tehsil Sullah, Palampur
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Almost nothing exists for women
Residential de-addiction and mental health care in Himachal is overwhelmingly designed for men. Women are an afterthought in the floor plan and in the treatment protocol.
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What exists is priced out of reach
The good women's programmes are in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, and they cost more per month than a hill family's annual income. Distance and money rule them out before anyone reads the brochure.
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Stigma does the rest
A son in rehab is a difficult phase. A daughter or a wife in rehab is treated as a permanent mark on the family. That fear keeps women out of care longer than any waiting list ever could.
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So the burden falls on the home
Untreated addiction, depression, anxiety and trauma get absorbed by the household until something breaks. We built Vaishalya so that families in this valley finally have somewhere to send her instead.
A note from our chairperson
I have sat across from a thousand people. The women arrived last, and hurt longest.
I am a counselling psychologist. My training is in psychology, with a postgraduate diploma in guidance and counselling, specialised study in anxiety, mood disorders and addictive behaviour, and certification authorised by the American Psychological Association. On paper that is the qualification. In practice, what shaped this place was much simpler: years inside de-addiction and rehabilitation settings, watching who got care quickly and who did not.
Men were brought in by their families within weeks. Women arrived after years, usually after everything else had already been tried at home, and usually with someone insisting the stay be kept quiet. By the time she reached me, she had often stopped believing she was allowed to need help at all.
Vaishalya Wellness is that address. A women-only residential space in the hills above Palampur, with real clinical staff, a structured day, and a door that does not open onto anyone's judgement. It is not a luxury retreat and we do not pretend otherwise. It is a serious, affordable place to recover, run by people who have done this work long enough to know what actually helps.
Alongside this centre, I serve as Chairperson and Managing Trustee of the Asha Bhupender Charitable Trust, through which we take counselling and awareness into villages that will never come looking for it, and subsidise care for women whose families cannot pay.
Leena Mehta
Counselling Psychologist
Chairperson & Managing Trustee, Asha Bhupender Charitable Trust
What we are working toward
Care that a woman can afford, reach, and walk into without apology.
A Himachal where a woman never has to leave the state, or the family name behind, to get well.
We want residential mental health and de-addiction care for women to be ordinary here. Present in the district, priced within reach, staffed by qualified people, and spoken about without shame. Not a rescue of last resort, but a normal step a family takes early, the way they would for any other illness.
To run one women-only centre properly, and prove it can be done anywhere.
- Keep the space exclusively for women, privately and without exception
- Combine psychiatric care, psychotherapy and daily medical supervision under one in-house team
- Hold the cost at a level real Himachali families can actually meet
- Work with families, not around them, so recovery survives the trip home
- Take awareness into villages through the Trust, so women arrive years earlier than they do now
- Subsidise stays for women who cannot pay, funded through the Trust
The centre
Quiet, high, and deliberately far from everything.
The setting is part of the treatment. Low stimulation, clean air, long views, and a routine that gives the day a shape again.
Women only
A private, single-gender environment throughout. No shared wards, no mixed programming, no negotiation on this point.
Structured days
Guided yoga and mindfulness, one-to-one counselling, group work, and rest built into a routine that repeats until it holds.
Flexible stays
Fifteen days, a month, or longer, depending on what the assessment shows. Work-from-home friendly for those who need it.
Clean, simple food
Ayurvedic-inspired, nourishing meals prepared on site. Nutrition treated as part of recovery, not a hotel amenity.
How we work
Modern clinical care, held together by patience.
We combine evidence-based psychiatry and psychotherapy with Ayurveda, yoga and the traditional practices these hills already trust. Not as decoration, but because women here engage with care that speaks their own language.
Assessment before anything else
Every woman is assessed by our psychiatrist and psychologist before a plan is written. Nothing is preset. Addiction, depression, anxiety, trauma and grief do not respond to the same schedule.
Medical supervision, on site
Detox and stabilisation are handled with physicians and nursing staff present, not outsourced. Medication is managed by our psychiatrist and reviewed as she progresses.
Therapy that continues
One-to-one counselling and group sessions run throughout the stay. Cognitive behavioural techniques, emotional processing and practical coping work, matched to the person rather than the diagnosis.
Body, routine and rest
Daily yoga, mindfulness, nature-based activity, sleep repair and nutrition. The nervous system has to settle before insight is of any use.
The family is part of the work
Most of what a woman returns to is unchanged unless someone changes it. We involve families directly so the home she goes back to can hold the recovery.
After she leaves
Follow-up counselling continues through Vaishalya Healing, in person or online. Discharge is a stage in the plan, not the end of it.
The team
Everyone who treats you works here.
Psychiatry, psychology, medicine, nursing and social work under one roof and one plan. No visiting consultants, no rotating strangers.
Dr. Devasheesh
Psychiatrist
Leena Mehta
Counselling Psychologist
Dr. Nikhil Sharma
Physician, MBBS
Dr. Nitin Sharma
Physician, MBBS
Harish Palek
Social Worker, MSW
Nidhi Sharma
Nurse
Madhu Bala
Nurse
Jyoti
Nurse
On the ground
The work that happens before anyone walks through our door.
Through the Asha Bhupender Charitable Trust we run awareness sessions, community camps, school and college programmes, and peer support groups across Kangra and beyond. Most women reach care years late because nobody ever told them care existed. This is how we shorten that gap.
In the press
Reported locally, in the papers families here actually read.
Coverage of our awareness work and of the case for women's rehabilitation in Himachal Pradesh.
Tap any clipping to read it full size.
People behind us
In their own words, unedited.
People who have worked with us, volunteered with us, or watched this being built from the ground up.
Mental health support was never something families here could easily access or afford. What this trust is doing, bringing that care into the hills, is something the region genuinely needed. The work is quiet but it is consistent.
Chandan Thakur
Himachal Pradesh
There are very few places in Himachal where a woman's family can find structured rehabilitation support without traveling far or spending beyond their means. This trust fills that gap in a way that feels thought through, not rushed.
Himanshu Saxena
Sweden
Smt. Leena Kumari has built something here that the community was missing for a long time. It is not just about the facility. It is about how seriously they take the recovery process. That seriousness shows.
Keshav Chander Sharma
Himachal Pradesh
The work here is quiet but it is deep. You start to see how much one person showing up consistently can change the atmosphere for people who have been struggling alone.
Akshat
Social Work Student, Volunteer
What stands out is that this is not just a token initiative. They are working consistently on the ground, in communities where these conversations were never even had before. That kind of sustained effort is rare.
Rhythm Sen
Ireland
The setting itself, deep in the mountains, surrounded by calm, adds something to the healing process that you cannot manufacture. Combined with the structured care they provide, it makes this place genuinely different from anything else available here.
Tarun Goel
Mandi, Himachal Pradesh
Our charitable arm
Asha Bhupender Charitable Trust
The centre and the Trust were built for the same reason, and they fund each other's reach.
The Trust exists to make sure that a woman's ability to pay never decides whether she recovers. It runs free counselling, community awareness campaigns, vocational and reintegration support, and subsidises residential care for women whose families cannot meet the cost.
It works alongside government bodies, NGOs, academic institutions and community groups across Himachal Pradesh, and is governed by a Board of Trustees committed to transparency in how every contribution is used.
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Awareness
Breaking the silence around addiction and mental illness in villages where neither is ever named out loud.
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Rehabilitation
Accessible detox, counselling and residential care for those who cannot afford private centres.
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Holistic care
Therapy, meditation and traditional practice used together to rebuild more than the symptom.
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Reintegration
Vocational training and skill development so recovery ends in independence, not dependence.
Speak to us
If you are asking on behalf of someone, that is usually how it starts.
Call, message, or send the form. You will speak to our clinical team, not a sales desk. Nothing is shared with anyone, and there is no obligation to admit.
Tehsil Palampur, Distt. Kangra,
Himachal Pradesh 176102
Admissions enquiries answered outside these hours
About Vaishalya Wellness
Set in the quiet foothills of the Dhauladhar range in Palampur, Vaishalya Wellness is a women only rehabilitation and recovery centre. We offer a safe, private and dignified space for women seeking professional help with addiction, trauma and mental health, guided by clinical care and genuine compassion.
A women only residential facility in Himachal Pradesh.
Registration No: 2025/238/4/186
What We Treat
Additional Info
Contact
Call us +91 82194 74936 +91 70181 48449
Mohal, Gugga Saloh Rd,Tehsil Sullah, Palampur,
Himachal Pradesh 176102 Get directions
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