Paraguay's Mental Health System - Update
Follow up to the legal petition before the IACHR
Partner: Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI)
In September 2004, Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) captured video footage in a Paraguay?s Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital and collaborated with WITNESS to prepare a follow up video to be screened before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) at the Organization of American States (OAS), exposing the ongoing dehumanizing conditions at the hospital in Paraguay.
Nearly a year earlier, MDRI documented inhuman and degrading conditions in the Neuro-Psychiatric hospital and edited a video with WITNESS that was submitted to the IACHR as part of a legal petition requesting urgent measures to protect two teenage boys - Jorge and Julio ? who were detained within the institution. They spent four years naked and locked in isolation cells that reeked of urine and excrement. In a landmark decision, the IACHR approved urgent measures to protect the lives and physical integrity of those in psychiatric institutions by recommending the State of Paraguay take immediate action to remedy the situation.
At the same time, MDRI and WITNESS brought the issue to the general public by streaming the video over their websites and MDRI contacted CNN en Español to do a follow-up story. This exposure lead to a series of changes - Julio and Jorge were released from their tiny cells and given access to showers, clothes, as well as 24-hour nurses. However, although the physical conditions of Jorge and Julio?s had improved, much still remained to be done within the Hospital.
In June 2004, MDRI returned to Paraguay and documented that hospital conditions continued to threaten the lives and health of the more than 400 people detained in the institution. Based on these findings, MDRI filed for an extension of the precautionary measures petition, arguing that the conditions in the institution continued to present grave and urgent threats to the lives and physical, mental, and moral well-being of the people detained there.
In July 2004, the IACHR extended the emergency measures for an additional six months as MDRI had requested. In September 2004, MDRI gathered more video footage to document the ongoing abusive conditions in the Hospital. Using these images, MDRI and WITNESS produced this video to screen at a meeting with Paraguayan state officials at the IACHR in Washington DC, demonstrating the need for more measures to be taken to fully guarantee the rights of those in the Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital.
Presently, MDRI is negotiating an accord with the Paraguayan government that would establish a plan, timeline, and funding for a process of deinstitutionalization and the establishment of community-based mental health services in the country. The accord will require the signatures of the President and the Minister of Health, with a guarantee of funding for homes in the community and adequate follow-up for three to five years. If this agreement is reached, it will be an historic achievement for the rights of people with mental disabilities
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
--Thomas Paine
