From The Guardian: Mental health institutions in Europe are failing to safeguard residents’ human rights, with many described as shocking by experts who have found not one institution among 75 visited across the continent fully met all of the standards set by the United Nations.
While some institutions took care to train staff to deal with crises, create individual recovery plans and provide access to legal support, others failed to even partially meet such standards.
The findings are part of a broader report, produced by the World Health Organisation (WHO), with the assessment of institutions such as mental hospitals and social care homes covering 25 countries across Europe. It notes instances of patients sleeping on floors, bedbug infestations, lack of toilet paper and broken windows with many facilities not even having toilet doors and shower screens or curtains. In addition, most did not offer patients any form of occupation.
“Residents often had literally nothing to do and were not given opportunities for learning or training in skills that might provide them with an occupation,” the authors write.