BackOmbudsman of the Republic of Latvia has presented his Report on State Social Care Centers for Adults with Mental Impairments. The Office of the Ombudsman conducted about 30 inspection visits to long-term social care and rehabilitation institutions covering all regions of Latvia.
In 2010, the staff of the Ombudsman’s Office visited all five State Social Care Centers (hereinafter – SSCC), since the priorities set by the Ombudsman’s Office for the year 2010 included monitoring the observation of the rights of persons with disabilities. The Ombudsman summarized the results of such inspections in the Opinion dated 25 February 2011 and presented the Opinion to the Ministry of Welfare, Ministry of Health, as well as to each SSCC. The key problem identified in the Opinion concerned the fact that SSCCs were providing medicinal treatment services, in spite of the fact that SSCCs were not listed in the Register of Medicinal Treatment Institutions. The said Centers are not therefore subject to the control mechanism covering the treatment institutions either in terms of service quality or storage of records. The Opinion therefore points out that the Ombudsman finds it necessary to improve normative regulation of health care provided at social care centers. The above recommendation has not been followed until present.
A letter was sent to Mr. V. Dombrovskis, the Prime Minister, on 10 October 2011 regarding the issues of securing human rights at social care institutions to inform about the earlier opinions issued by the Ombudsman and pointing out that ignoring of the recommendations previously issued by the Ombudsman and failure to address the issues in question should be treated as negligence of the public officials in charge of handling the issues of human rights.
Visits to SSCC were arranged in 2011 and 2012 at the initiative of the Ombudsman within the framework of instituted inspection proceedings, with the objective to draw continuous attention to the following 2 key issues:
- Obligation of the State to pursue deinstitutionalization gradually eliminating the need for SSCC services;
- Situation of persons with mental impairments accommodated in SSCCs, with focus of the following issues: conditions, grounds for provision of long-term social care and rehabilitation services; the right to liberty; health care and social rehabilitation.
The above-mentioned inspection visits to SSCCs and their branches for adults with mental impairments were arranged in 2011 and 2012 with participation of L. Jorena, Psychiatric Expert of the Ombudsman’s Office. P.Hauksson, Foreign Expert of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment with vast experience of monitoring visits to closed-type facilities, also joined the inspection visits made in late 2012 to three SSCC branches.
Source: Office of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Latvia
