Memo From Pravda - In Eastern Europe, Lives Languish in Mental Facilities
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/world/europe/05bulgaria.html?hp
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PRAVDA, Bulgaria — The name of this isolated spot in the lush Danube plains means justice or, in Russian, truth.
But little of either seems to have penetrated the home for men with mental disabilities and illnesses here, a bleak establishment reached most easily by a bone-jarring, six-hour ride from Sofia, the capital.
In the Communist era, this is where authorities hid the mentally ill from public view. Today, the Pravda Social Care Home for Men with Mental Disorders, a small complex of scrappy, two-story buildings, is still a favored destination for city folk to send away relatives with a mental illness or disability — and not worry about hearing from them again, employees and residents here say.
Across Central and Eastern Europe, many people with mental illnesses or disabilities are sequestered without rights or recourse under Communist-era rules that put their fates in the hands of legal guardians, often regardless of the severity of their disabilities, according to human rights groups.
But little of either seems to have penetrated the home for men with mental disabilities and illnesses here, a bleak establishment reached most easily by a bone-jarring, six-hour ride from Sofia, the capital.
In the Communist era, this is where authorities hid the mentally ill from public view. Today, the Pravda Social Care Home for Men with Mental Disorders, a small complex of scrappy, two-story buildings, is still a favored destination for city folk to send away relatives with a mental illness or disability — and not worry about hearing from them again, employees and residents here say.
Across Central and Eastern Europe, many people with mental illnesses or disabilities are sequestered without rights or recourse under Communist-era rules that put their fates in the hands of legal guardians, often regardless of the severity of their disabilities, according to human rights groups.
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