Ombudsman representatives: patients in the Horodnyansk psychoneurological boarding school for women are in terrible conditions

Employees of the Department for the Implementation of the National Preventive Mechanism of the Commissioner’s Secretariat, together with representatives of the public (Serhiy Burov, Oleksandra Lynowitska and Lyudmila Dovhobrod), conducted a monitoring visit to the Horodnyansk Psychoneurological Boarding House for Women in the Chernihiv region.

The monitoring group began its visit with the ward for bedridden people. The residents are poorly looked after, many have huge bedsores. It is difficult to stay in the rooms for more than three minutes – the stench of feces corrodes the eyes. Due to the fact that the staff does not use diapers, which are packed in a warehouse, almost the entire floor in the rooms is soaked with urine, and people are lying on wet diapers.

Due to the cold weather at the time of the visit, all the women were in the wards, but not in their rooms, but in separate empty rooms with wooden benches. There is no rehabilitation in the boarding school, except for labor (digging the garden, herding cows, etc.), and therefore people just sit or walk along the corridors all day long.

A huge problem is the provision of medical care in the boarding school. The doctor in the boarding school works only a few hours a day – part-time. The medical documentation is a mess, in the medical histories of the wards who have undergone surgical interventions, there is no mention of this. For example, a woman with a cancerous breast tumor and an existing ulcer that is oozing has not been examined by an oncologist for more than three years, and there is no certificate that she underwent chemotherapy. The boarding school staff could not adequately explain why people are not even provided with primary medical care.

But what is most frightening is the carelessness of the staff. When asked by the monitors why only 1 nurse is caring for 38 bedridden patients, the nurse and the director of the institution replied that another nurse went to dig beets with the patients. The question arises, so what is more important – neglected patients with ulcers and bedsores or the subsidiary farm?

“During our work in the NPM Department, we have not seen such horror as here,” representatives of the monitoring group shared their impressions.

Based on the results of the monitoring visit, appropriate acts of response of the Commissioner for Human Rights will be prepared.