Worldwide Abuse in Psychiatric Hospitals

"Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI), has found children with disabilities hidden and wasting away, near death, in Romania's adult psychiatric facilities. A report released by MDRI, Hidden Suffering: Romania's Segregation and Abuse of Infants and Children with Disabilities, describes teenagers weighing no more than 27 pounds. Some children are tied down with bedsheets, their arms and legs twisted and left to atrophy."

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"In its report, Behind Closed Doors: Human Rights Abuses in the Psychiatric Facilities, Orphanages and Rehabilitation Centers of Turkey, MDRI describes the widespread use of ECT treatment on psychiatric patients – including children – without the use of anesthesia. Investigators also found evidence of children dying from starvation,
dehydration and lack of medical care in so-called rehabilitation centers."

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"In October 2003, MDRI sent a mission to Paraguay to document the situation of Julio and Jorge. For more than four years, two boys, Julio, age 17, and Jorge, age 18, have been locked in six-by-six feet isolation cells, naked and without access to bathrooms in the Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital of Paraguay."

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These quotes are from the Mental Disability Rights International web site (www.mdri.org). The reports found there are hard to read; the photographs painful to look at. Yet this is reality in psychiatric hospitals—worldwide—in 2006. Why? Start demanding answers and let's hold this profession responsible for its actions.