About 15% of the persons judged to be incompetent and placed in psychoneurological hospitals could live in the community if there was a support service. Ion Cibotarica, public policy and advocacy programs director at the Center for Legal Assistance for Persons with Disabilities, has told IPN that the persons with mental disabilities are unjustifiably limited in their rights and suffer because of the abuses on the part of guardians.

A report by the Center reveals how the rights of the patients in the psychoneurological hospitals in Cocieri (Dubasari), Branzeni (Edinet), Badiceni (Soroca) and Balti municipality are respected. There are no clear rules defining the conditions for admitting persons with mental disabilities to these hospitals and only the chief doctor decides who will live with who. In the hospital in Balti, for instance, there are by 2-3 persons in a room, while in the hospital in Badiceni there are even 20 persons in one room. 10% of the patients in psychiatric hospitals do not have identification papers. If they receive social benefits, the money is transferred to the medical institution and is not offered directly to the beneficiaries for personal needs.

The Center for Legal Assistance for Persons with Disabilities recommends amending the legislation so as to accelerate the process of deinstitutionalizing the persons from psychiatric hospitals. For the purpose, support services need to be created at community level. Another recommendation is to modify the system for judging a person to be incompetent as the current procedures are outdated and do not meet the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, stated Ion Cibotarica.

There are over 1,600 patients in the psychoneurological hospitals covered by the Center’s report.