No one likes to be sick or go to the hospital, but sometimes it is unavoidable. Most people in Armenia are not familiar with the concept of “patient’s rights.” What they do know, however, is that when it comes to health care, everyone has the right to be treated in a safe environment, free of abuse, harassment, and neglect. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always extend to people living with intellectual disabilities or mental health problems.
Armenia ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1993 and adopted a mental health law that is in line with international norms. Nearly two decades later, however, we see that what the government agreed to is far different from what is actually happening in psychiatric hospitals throughout Armenia.
The Open Society Foundations–Armenia supported a group of human rights experts to visit and monitor conditions inside psychiatric hospitals. Their reports read like horror stories, detailing the lives of people left to the mercy of fate:
“A male nurse beat a patient who tried to run away. Even in the presence of the monitoring group he continued to abuse the patient.”
“One of the patients was tied up for two days. The hospital staff informed us that they gave food and water to the patient, but the monitors didn’t witness it.”
“Many patients are subjected to physical abuse, they are forced to clean the rooms and wash toilets, take care of other patients… do the work that the clinic staff should do.”
“In the yard of a hospital, under heavy rain, a barefoot patient washed the car of a hospital employee.”
Listening to these reports, we have to ask: Are medical professionals causing more trauma for their patients rather than providing actual treatment? Do hospital employees see people with mental health issues as problems and not as patients?
The government of Armenia should take measures to close these abusive institutions. People with mental health disabilities should receive care within their communities, not be locked away as though they are criminals. Community-based housing is an affordable alternative to large, abusive institutions. And people are able to live in freedom near their families.
Our government leaders in Armenia need to get serious about their commitments and fulfill the promises they have made.
6 Comments
This sounds so cruel. We all know that taking care of patients with mental health problems is a lot harder than patients with physical health problems, but still, they were sent to a hospital for a reason, to get well, not to act as servants of the employees. What heartless people.
Thanks for the updates on Armenia's Hospital and precarious conditions of the mentally-challenged individuals over there. Most of the times, these individuals are seen and considered as 'social menace' and unwanted burdens given their life situations. The international human rights watchdog community should step in right now, to draw a line between appending mere signatures to conventional issues such as patients' rights and the practicability of the protocol issues contained in the documents involved. Armenia should be consequently reported to the UN for sanction just as it was for the obnoxious apatheid regime in South Africa years ago. As a Peace Scholar, i believe there are dozens of options available to enforce the rule of law in this respect, and sustain them with positive affirmations.
This is still going on in devloping countries where poverty is used as an excuse.Biting of patients such as a woman in labor and inability to provide safe treatment in general must end. There is so much violation of patients rights in developing countries that has nothing to do with poverty.
As a registered nurse in the US I believe we all need to fight for health and human rights all over the world. Like the Armenians the Concept of "patient's right" is still a nightmare.
This report highlights the abuse of mental patients in my country. The situation is not very different in the other violence infested societies like ours: China, Russia, USA...The cosmetics may vary, the substance remains the same.Not every one can fly over the cuckoo's nest though. Powerful people of sick societies are themselves sick. They can not protect the vulnerable. They can only torment the weak.
It hurts to read or hear this kind of news. I think the government of Armenia should be the one to impose regulations to this kind of department. The staff hospital should be reprimanded of their actions. But the head should be the one to monitor the conditions of the patients as well as the way the staff treated them.I suggest the staff should undergo seminars on how to handle properly the situatiosn They have to be expose to humane treatment. Maybe their actions are like that because for them that is normal according to what the know and see around them.Human Rights should ne establish in Armenia to protect the rights of the innocence. Actually its not only Armenia that have this kind of abuse. We here in the Philippines we have that also, though we have Human Rights department but still there are people who are inhumane to others.
I know from first-hand experience that these kinds of abuses are true. With tremendous help, both local and international, I started Warm Hearth, Armenia's first group home because of this very problem. Our now-residents were destined for these institutions. We continue to try to provide a safe place for our residents, apart from the mental hospitals. However, we would love to see the community advocate for the patients of these hospitals, and help us in creating more homes like Warm Hearth. www.friendsofwarmhearth.org.
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