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| - Romania pledged Thursday to improve conditions for the mentally ill and the disabled after a case in which psychiatric patients were found to have been kept in windowless rooms as punishment. Mistreatment of psychiatric patients also made headlines in neighbouring Bulgaria last week, where an investigation found degrading conditions in a home for elderly with dementia. Romania's Labour Minister Violeta Alexandru said that by 2022 the government planned to close all homes for those with mental or physical disabilities hosting more than 50 people and instead re-integrate them in local communities. "Nothing has been done in this field. On the contrary, the situation is more serious than it was 10 or 15 years ago", Alexandru, part of a freshly-installed liberal government, said during a news conference. She did not detail how those with mental or physical disabilities or problems would be re-integrated into society where they often face harsh discrimination. Alexandru went to Urlati in the south last November to check a psychiatric facility hosting 175 people to find that the residents there were banned from going out and some were forced to spend days in tiny, windowless rooms after they made "mistakes". An investigation has since revealed that four residents died last year though their deaths could have been prevented if medical personnel had been more pro-active to care for them. While the lack of funds is often used to justify facilities' precarious state, the main problem is "abusive staff who don't respect the rights" of the patients, who are sometimes "treated like animals", according to Madalina Turza, head of the state agency for people with disabilities and mental illnesses. In another shocking incident in August, a patient in a psychiatric hospital in Buzau county in the south-east killed five and injured several others. At that time, the Ministry of Health had blamed the staff for a "long series of errors" that made the attack possible. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly condemned Romania for failing to protect people with disabilities. Meanwhile, in Bulgaria -- like Romania also an EU member -- an ombudsman is investigating how 24 elderly residents with dementia could die within a year with the toll being considered too high for the 60-bed home. Last year, Bulgaria launched a three-year action plan which includes the closure of 10 understaffed and inadequate institutions and replacing them with day centres offering care within the community, as well as a smaller number of residential homes. In a 2017 report, the UN's Committee Against Torture expressed concern over "the high incidence of inappropriate or unnecessary non-consensual institutionalisation" in Bulgaria while noting a lack of "independent inspection or monitoring mechanism for mental health institutions". mr-ii-vs-jza/har
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