Reports from social care institutions
Fifty-two institutions for men and women with mental disabilities (mental illness and/or developmental disabilities) exist in Bulgaria. They fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy (MLSP). The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee has been monitoring the situation in these places since 2001 by means of visits. In some, where the situation was especially alarming, we have made 3-4 visits.
The situation in several of the visited institutions is of particular concern to the BHC. Six women locked in a cage in the yard of the institution in Sanadinovo - this is what the delegation of the BHC, Amnesty International and Mental Disability Rights International found when they came here in October 2001. The subsequent reaction from Amnesty ("Disabled women condemned to slow death") lead to the closing of the institution in July 2002.
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The institution in Dragash Vojvoda sparked shocking publications from Amnesty International ("Residents of Dragash Vojvoda are dying as a result of gross neglect"). Its sad fame rests as the institution with one of the highest mortality rates in the social care system - 22 residents died there in 15 months in 2001/2002. This is the second insitution that the MLSP decided to close down by the end of 2002 (an engagement it has yet to keep) because of unsuitable living conditions. More about Dragash Vojvoda...
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Only short distance from the town of Rila, and a mere 10 kilometers from the Rila Monastery, a narrow steep mountain road leads to the institution for mentally ill men in the village of Pastra. A hundred men live here, separated in three blocks, locked behind high fences. Dark, cold rooms, toilets drowning in filth, faeces on ground in the yard are the first thing that the newcomer sees here. The seclusion room in the basement - scantily furnished with a mattress on the bare floor and metal bars on a glassless window - completes the picture. More about Pastra...
The institution in Oborishte (near the city of Varna on the Black Sea coast) is perhaps the institution with the most appalling living conditions visited so far. Rotting wooden floors, chipped ceilings, unhygienic and lurid rooms with crumbling plaster. The doorless toilet is nothing more than a hole in the cement floor. In no other institution have the researchers seen so many naked residents. More about the Oborishte institution...
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Gara Samuil, North Bulgaria. This is the location of an institution where 103 women and 12 men with mental disabilities live. This is also the place where we heard the most complaints of illtreatment of residents by staff, as well between residents themselves. The bathroom in the basement is equipped with two baths which at the time of the visit were filled with slack and slimy water. More about the Samuil institution...
A hundred and sixty-four residents live in the institution in the village of Kuledin, near the town of Bregovo on the banks of the Danube river. They use an outside toilet, which has no running water or doors, with walls stained with faeces. At the time of the visit, the institution had no budget for medicine of any kind. More about the Kudelin institution...
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The institution for mentally ill women near the village of Razdol stands just 5-6 km from the country's border with Macedonia, in the building of a former army post. The walls and floor in the toilets are covered in faeces. A resident with an umbilical hernia the size of a football presents visual illustation of the kind of medical care one can expect to get here. More about the institution in Razdol...
Just two other villages separate the village of Radovets, South from Topolovgrad, from the border with Turkey. Nearly 90 mentally ill men live in the institution by the village. During an October 2001 visit the team of researchers found disintegrating buildings with crumbling plaster, walls blackened from smoke, and urine and faeces on the cement floor. Several water fountains in the yard were the only means available to the men for their most elementary hygiene needs. We heard complaints from illtreatment of residents by orderlies - kicks, hits, strikes... The institution has a number of isolators on its premises - the researchers found at least four narrow spaces used for seclusion of residents for an unspecified period of time without keeping any record of this. More about Radovets...
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The institution in the village of Cherni Vrah stands out among the other social care institutions with its good and well-maintained premises. However, the concern of the BHC was promted by the methods of seclusion and restraint used in this institution. Three women have spent months in three cells, while a fourth was left to spend her days in a bed in the seclusion room's corridor. The researchers also saw a woman, chained to the wall with a 60-cm chain tied to her ankle. More about the Cherni Vrah institution...
The budget of the institution for mentally disabled women in the village of Butan, near Kozlodui in North Bulgaria, has money for nothing more than staff salaries. The last time bedlinen was purchased here was in 1997. With no running water from April unitl September every year, the women frequently have to wash in the nearby river. More about the institution in Butan...