AP PHOTOS: Paraguay’s only public psychiatric hospital runs short of food and medicine
AP PHOTOS: Paraguay’s only public psychiatric hospital runs short of food and medicine
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, June 24, 12:41 AM
ASUNCION, Paraguay — Paraguay’s only public psychiatric hospital is forced to feed hundreds of patients with donated food for lack of funding. Now, it’s running low on medicine.
South America’s poorest country was investigated and given warnings by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2003 and 2008 for its treatment of mental patients following deaths, rapes and other abuses at the Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Asuncion. The warning was lifted late last year after the hospital guaranteed the security and well-being of patients, said Mirta Mendoza, head of Mental Health, a state-run office.
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But there’s no money for heating to protect patients from the biting Paraguayan chill during the winter months.
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The hospital recently hit a crisis when it couldn’t even buy food and there were no psychiatric drugs for ambulatory patients, only inpatients, hospital director Teofilo Villalba told The Associated Press.
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Paraguay’s fragile economy has battered the public health sector.
“The budget for all public hospitals is $900 million, but we can only use 30 percent of it because the Finance Ministry has not transferred the rest,” Paraguayan Health Minister Felix Ayala said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/ap-photos-paraguays-only-public-psychiatric-hospital-runs-short-of-food-and-medicine/2013/06/24/bc9d3ea2-dc90-11e2-a484-7b7f79cd66a1_story.html
