In a new report released the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) calls on the Romanian authorities to take urgent action to ensure that all persons in psychiatric establishments are offered decent living conditions and appropriate treatment for their mental disorders (see the English and Romanian versions of the executive summary of the report).
The CPT stresses that, above all, addressing these problems requires reinforcing staffing levels in the hospitals. More generally, the Committee also advocates for a shift away from institutional care towards establishing mental health services in the community offering adequate social support structures.
The report contains the findings of a visit to the country from 19 to 30 September 2022 and focuses on the treatment of patients held in psychiatric establishments and of residents accommodated in residential care centres.
The most dramatic situation was found at the Pădureni-Grajduri Psychiatric and Safety Measures Hospital, where 104 patients had to share a bed with another patient. Patients were crammed into dormitories with almost all the floor space taken up by their beds; for example, in the admission ward, a room of 24m² was accommodating 18 patients in nine beds. For the CPT, the warehousing conditions of persons with mental disorders and intellectual disabilities found in this hospital may well be considered as amounting to inhuman and degrading treatment.
In their response, the Romanian authorities provide information on various measures, taken or envisaged, to implement the recommendations made by the Committee in the visit report, notably through the National Health Strategy 2023-2030 and its Action Plan (see the Romanian version of the response).
