Social Institution for Adults with Mental Illness

Razdol village, Blagoevgrad district

The institution is located high in the mountain, away from other settlements, January 2002. © BHC

One hundred and nineteen women aged 22 to 70 live in the institution. The profiling of diagnoses in the institution is violated - it is supposed to accommodate adults with mental illness, but it also accommodates women with developmental disabilities (30% of all residents). This fact is an additional burden for the adequate medical care and resocialisation of the residents.

The Razdol institution is located in an isolated location, 15 km away from the nearest village. The road to the institution is in extremely bad condition.

Residents trying to keep warm in the day room, January 2002. © BHC

The buildings are run down, they have not central heating and use coal during the winter months. Residents have access to hot water only during showers - once a week according to the personnel, but judging by the residents' outer appearance - much more rarely. Complaints were received from residents that orderlies bathe them with a hose. The hygiene in the toilets is extremely bad, they are broken and filthy, smeared with faeces on the walls and floor; several toilets lack doors. All windows in the toilets are broken.

The institution lacks a special room for a bathroom and residents bathe in a metal bath in the washroom. Bedridden residents are bathed in baths in their rooms

Women having lunch in the cafeteria. The personnel has removed all chairs 'for security reasons'. January 2002. © BHC

by other residents, not by orderlies. The level of hygiene in the institution is very bad; residents report that they clean the rooms and corridors themselves. Some women have to share a bed, in one room the researchers saw 30 women. The sheets and blankets were in a wretched state.

One of the biggest problems in the Razdol institution is the lack of adequate medical care and of sufficient care from the orderlies to the residents and hygiene. A large part of the women's illnesses, which are not connected to their mental illness or developmental disability, remain untreated. One of the institution's residents is a diabetic, however the institution does not even have an apparatus for measuring sugar blood levels. Another resident has hernia the size of a football, but has not been operated despite a doctor's recommendation in her medical file. Bedridden residents are not taken outside.

The institution has a room equipped for training and occupational therapy, but during the BHC visit it was found locked and the key to the room could not be found, leading us to believe that access to this room is not regular.

(Information as at January 2002)