2024-08-13 13:36:38
Severely mentally ill patients should be bound in exceptional cases, when the patient’s behavior may be a danger to himself or others. Today there is a huge increase in psychoses as a result of the use of drugs and psychostimulants. And if we medicate him, his brain is going to be a mess, and we can overload him and kill him if we overload him with a lot of meds. In addition, the medications do not work immediately, they need time, and the excitement is very severe, what can we do.
This is what psychologist Dr. Tsveteslava Galabova, director of “St. Ivan Rilski” Psychiatric Hospital, told Nova TV. She commented on the case from last week, when a mentally ill person died in a fire in a specialized institution in Varna because he was tied up.
There are 6 similar cases in 5 years.
In the 21st century it is absurd to have people tied up in psychiatry, but ours work like in the 50s and 60s of the last century, it stayed there. Only our medications are at the world level, but we do not fulfill any criteria for modern psychiatry, as they exist in Europe, explained Dr. Galabova.
She said that in a ward the staff:patient ratio should be 1:2 or 1:3. 5 people are needed to fix a patient. There is no department in Bulgaria where there are 5 people per shift, because there are no people. There is no way we can attract people and keep them in miserable conditions, such as 99% of our psychiatric hospitals, said Dr. Galabova. There must be either a nurse or video surveillance in a room, and that means a nurse behind the screen.
It should be clear that a lot of money needs to be poured into our specialty. We don’t need expensive equipment and drugs, but we don’t have people, explained the psychiatrist. There are no clinical paths in this specialty.
Responsibility will probably be sought from the staff in Varna, but it must be understood that the responsibility for this state lies with the state. Until she does her job, there is no way things will change, said Dr. Galabova categorically. And it warned that it would soon have to reduce the number of mental illness patients relative to staff and close clinics.