The patient who in October 2022 started a fire in the Clinical Hospital of Psychiatry, located in Codru, did not have clinical symptoms that required hospitalization; instead, he should have served his life sentence in prison, with appropriate medication and involvement in cognitive-behavioral programs, says a report by Ombudsman Ceslav Panico.

Today the person is in court-ordered imprisonment.

The Ombudsman, who initiated an investigation following the fire, found a series of inactions and omissions by the Ministry of Health and the Hospital as to establishing mechanisms to prevent incidents or ill-treatment. This may have contributed to the 27 October 2022 incident by patients dissatisfied with their situation in the psychiatric establisment. No one was injured in the fire as all the patients and staff were evacuated to safety promtly.

The Ombudsman is concerned about the consequences for the patients involved in the incident. During a repeated visit, on November 28, a special commission found that the condition of a patient worsened. “The patient was still isolated from the rest of the patients in observation room no. 5 and, compared to the physical condition of the previous visit, the patient visibly looked bad and lost more than 15 kg, was pale, apathetic, dizzy, and stated that he was given non-stop treatment, although he did not know what drugs exactly he was being geven and in what doses. The Ombudsman considers such actions to be unacceptable and not corresponding to the security and safety needs of the person or other patients and the staff of the institution. These actions could amount to inhuman and degrading treatment”, the report states.

As a result of the investigation, the Ombudsman submitted recommendations to the Ministry of Health and the Psychiatric Hospital, with the request for them to be discussed in a joint meeting.