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THE PSYCHIATRIC GULAG

December 13, 2006

THE PSYCHIATRIC GULAG
The Misery of Romania's Mentally Ill

By Erich Wiedemann in Borsa, Romania

Patients in Romanian mental institutions are treated little better than animals. Neither the country's transition to democracy nor its preparations for entry into the European Union can make the government in Bucharest take action.


Doru discovered the dead man right after breakfast, lying in a meadow behind the lounge. A glass of water stood next to the charred corpse. The man had set himself on fire. Now he'll be examined by the doctors and then maybe he'll go to heaven, his friends say. He's put the worst behind him, they add.

The other patients don't have that option. They have to put up with the stinking gray underworld of the mental asylum in the Romanian town of Borsa. None of them know if they will ever get out again -- most of the patients in Borsa stay there until they die.

Mentally ill people are often seen as unwanted outsiders in Romania. No one wants to have to deal with them, and they're referred to colloquially as "varsa" ("weeds"). In this country, not even doctors believe a disturbed soul can become healthy again -- once crazy, always crazy.

Cursed

Borsa Castle is located in the most idyllic part of Transylvania, 260 kilometers (162 miles) west of Bucharest. It was the summer residence of the Bánffy family until shortly after the end of World War II. When the communists threw the family out, Baroness Bánffy put a curse on the expropriated house, wishing for it to become an asylum. The reality was worse than her curse. Borsa Castle became one of the most monstrous mental institutions in Romania.

The annual death rate here is around 10 percent. Those patients who don't have relatives to bribe the attendants with food parcels and gifts can't afford to become seriously ill. If they do, they may end up rotting in their own feces.

Outside visitors aren't welcome in the castle -- unless they're accompanied by Paul-Otto Schmid-Michel, a professor of psychiatry from Ravensburg in western Germany who has become something of a godparent to the asylum.

Less than rudimentary care

A young man stands in front of the carved wooden gate to the dormitory building, holding an apple and babbling. His gaunt skull has been shaven, and he is wearing gray-striped pajamas and a brown bathrobe. On his right foot is a grubby sneaker, while his bare left foot is almost completely black. He holds the apple out to the visitors, saying "Bun venit" ("Welcome").

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Labels: romanian mental institution

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