Sad article about the treatment of individuals with disabilities

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At a time when we are supposed to be feeling thankful for all that we

have, here is an article that will reinforce those feelings but will

also help to put our lives in America in global perspective...

Hate to post such a sad story, but this is the reality for many...

Report: Disabled kids abused in Serbia By DUSAN STOJANOVIC,

Associated Press Writer

Troubled children bound tightly to fetid cribs they have never left

since birth. A 6-year-old boy who tried to rip off his ear while tied

to a chair. A teenage girl who attempted to gouge out her eyes as

mental hospital staff stood by and did nothing.

The scenes of horror are chronicled in a report released Wednesday by

Mental Disability Rights International, a U.S.-based human rights

group that alleges systematic abuse of mentally disabled patients in

Serbia's psychiatric hospitals and social care institutions.

Health Minister Tomica Milosavljevic said he had not read the report

but conceded that psychiatric facilities had continued to suffer as

the nation struggled to recover from a series of civil wars in the

1990s.

But he said the report did not appear to adequately take into account

the progress Serbia has made since 2000 to improve conditions in

psychiatric hospitals.

" I'm not saying that everything is ideal, far from it, " Milosavljevic

said. " But ... I don't think that the problems (listed in the report)

are illustrating the true situation. "

The report could not be independently verified as The Associated

Press was not given permission to visit the institutions.

Serbia's mistreatment of the mentally ill was exposed after

autocratic President Slobodan Milosevic was overthrown in a popular

revolt in 2000. During Milosevic's 11-year rule, health care

standards plummeted as government funding was diverted to paying for

the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Serbia is not alone in mistreating the mentally handicapped, the

group said. Mental Disability Rights International has released

similar reports on facilities in Romania, Hungary, Mexico, Peru,

Russia, Turkey, Uruguay, Argentina and Serbia's province of Kosovo.

The report attributed abuse and neglect largely to understaffed and

underfinanced hospitals. It could represent a setback for the Balkan

nation as it seeks to join the European Union.

Serbian Social Affairs Minister Rasim Ljajic did not dispute the

allegations, saying " when I visit these places I cannot sleep for

three days. "

He also ordered that one of the institutions cited by MDRI stop

admitting children because it houses more than 500 " severely

retarded " patients.

While acknowledging MDRI's main findings, Ljajic criticized the

report as " malicious " because it does not " lead to the solution of

the problem. "

" The mere title of the report, Torment not Treatment, suggests that

someone intentionally wants to torment the patients, and that is

absolutely not true or acceptable, " Ljajic said.

Rosenthal, MDRI's executive director, said the intention was not

to accuse anyone of wrongdoing, but to point out problems.

" Our message is a message of hope ... that the Serbian government

will make immediate changes, " Rosenthal said.

The group said it would send its report to the EU, the United Nations

and other international organizations.

It said conditions in Serbia's mental hospitals have vastly improved

with help from foreign donors, but much more needs to be done " to

address the serious human rights problems that exist for some 18,000 "

patients.

Some children and adults with disabilities never leave their beds or

cribs and some are tied down for " a lifetime " to keep them from

harming themselves, it said.

" They eat, they go to bathroom and die in those cribs, " Laurie Ahern,

MDRI's investigator, said as the group showed a graphic video of the

patients and poor conditions in Serbia's mental institutions.

" To tie a person down and leave him in bed for life is tantamount to

torture, " said Rosenthal, executive director of the Washington-

based group.

" I looked into the crib and saw a child who looked to be 7 or 8 years

old, " the group quoted one of its investigators as saying. " The nurse

told me he was 21 and had been in the institution for eleven

years. ... I asked her how often he was taken out of the crib and she

said, 'Never, he has never been out of the crib in 11 years.' "

Ahern said that the boy, who suffers from Down syndrome and can

hardly communicate, is visited by his mother.

" When his mother comes, tears are in his eyes, " Ahern said. " She

wants to take the child back home, but she has no means to support

him. "

The report says that many of the children incessantly try to hurt

themselves and that the commonly accepted " treatment " for self-abuse

is the use of physical restraints.

" The practice actually exacerbates the underlying psychological

damage to the person, resulting in continued self-abuse and even more

physical restraint, " it said, adding that MDRI investigators saw many

children at the institution biting and chewing their own fingers.

The group recommended that some of Serbia's mental institutions be

closed and their patients be allowed access to " education,

employment, decent and safe housing, friends and family based on

their disability. "

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The

information contained in the AP News report may not be published,

broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written

authority of The Associated Press.

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