Levan Ioselian, Georgia’s public defender recently visited the mental health and drug addiction prevention centre. He expressed serious concern for the poor condition of the center.
According to the Public Defender “The overcrowded wards at the Mental Health and Drug Addiction Prevention Center is in very poor condition and the wards are in need of repair, the bathrooms are damaged , faulty and insufficient”
At the same time as per public defender the poor conditions of the centre reflected that the therapeutic, infrastructural and sanitary-hygienic conditions in the institution do not meet national or international standards and make it impossible to treat patients.
It is to be added that on July 5, the Public Defender of Georgia Levan Ioselian visited the Mental Health and Drug Addiction Prevention and inspected the standard of the services being provided for the patients of the mental health issues.
During his visit pubic defender also inspected the physical environment of the institution’s psychiatric departments, wards, dining areas, bathrooms, met and talked with the center’s administration staff also.
There were many problems revealed during the visit of the public defender, which includes the lack of therapeutic, infrastructural, and sanitary-hygienic conditions which do not comply with national or international standards and make it impossible to treat patients in serious condtions.
He after the visit, he commented that the patients are not provided with all the hygiene products they need. The dining space is small which does not allow patients to eat together.
The facility has a space for psycho-social rehabilitation which is provided with computer equipment and appropriate resources for various rehabilitation activities however both the space and the resources are insufficient and cannot ensure the inclusion of all patients with appropriate needs in the rehabilitation activities.
The patient safety problem was acutely highlighted as just a few days ago one patient jumped out of the window. Fortunately the incident did not have fatal consequences.
The Public Defender calls on the responsible state agencies to strengthen measures for the elimination of systemic problems in the field of mental health that have not been resolved for years and to ensure an appropriate standard of human rights protection.”
