From: unk...@googlegroups.com   
      
   The disabled children locked up in cages    
   By Chloe Hadjimatheou    
   BBC World Service    
      
   A child in a cage, photographed at the centre in 2008    
      
   A photograph from 2008 shows how children are put in cages    
      
      
      
   Disabled people in Greece are often stigmatised and can struggle to get the   
   support they need. Some disabled children who live in a state-run home are   
   locked up in cages - staff say they want to improve conditions but money is   
   short.    
      
   Nine-year-old Jenny stands and rocks backwards and forwards, staring through   
   the bars of a wooden cage.    
      
   When the door is unlocked she jumps down on to the stone floor and wraps her   
   arms tightly around the nurse. But a few minutes later she allows herself to   
   be locked back in again without a fuss.    
      
   She is used to her cage. It's been her home since she was two years old.    
      
   Jenny, who has been diagnosed with autism, lives in a state-run institution   
   for disabled children in Lechaina, a small town in the south of Greece, along   
   with more than 60 others, many of whom are locked in cells or cages.    
      
   Fotis, who is in his twenties and has Down's syndrome, sleeps in a small cell   
   separated from the other residents by ceiling-high wooden bars and a locked   
   gate. His cell is furnished only with a single bed. There are no personal   
   possessions in sight    
   anywhere in the centre.    
      
   "Are we going on a trip?" is this wiry young man's hopeful refrain whenever he   
   sees anyone new. But with barely six members of staff caring for more than 65   
   residents there is rarely an opportunity to leave the centre.    
      
   A caged bed and wooden bars separating a section of a room - some of the wood   
   has been painted    
   Some of the wooden partitions have been painted in bright colours    
   In the small staff room, an array of closed circuit TV screens flicker,   
   permanently tuned into the large wooden boxes that dominate the upstairs   
   rooms.    
      
   The poor conditions first came to the attention of the authorities five years   
   ago when a group of European graduates spent several months at the centre as   
   volunteers.    
      
   Catarina Neves, a Portuguese psychology graduate was among them.    
      
   Continue reading the main story    
   Find out more    
      
   Chloe Hadjimatheou's report can be heard on World Update on the BBC World   
   Service from 10:00 GMT on Friday 14 November    
   More from World Update    
   More from the BBC World Service    
   "On the first day there I was completely shocked... I could never have   
   imagined that we would have this situation in a modern European country but I   
   was even more surprised that the staff were behaving like it was normal," she   
   says.    
      
   The volunteers wrote up their experiences in a document that they sent to   
   politicians, European Union officials, and every human rights and disability   
   rights organisation they could find. Occasionally they received replies   
   thanking them for their email    
   without any promise of action but mostly they were ignored.    
      
   Then in 2010 the volunteers' testimony came to the attention of the Greek   
   ombudsman for the rights of the child who visited the centre and published a   
   damning report in which he highlighted, "the degrading living conditions...   
   the deprivation of care and    
   support provided, the use of sedating medication, children being strapped to   
   their beds, the use of wooden cage-beds for children with learning   
   disabilities, the electronic surveillance, as well as the fact that such   
   practices constitute violations of    
   human rights."    
      
   He also referred to the fact that there had been several deaths at the centre   
   due to a lack of supervision. A 15-year-old died in 2006 after choking on an   
   object he had accidentally swallowed. Ten months later when a 16-year-old   
   died, the post-mortem    
   examination revealed his stomach was full of pieces of fabric, thread and   
   bandages.    
      
   Wooden bars separate part of a room - a person lies behind the bars and a   
   woman puts a cover over someone lying on a bed, 2008    
   The residents, shown here in 2008, have no personal belongings in the home    
   It was after these incidents that management of the centre decided that the   
   staffing levels made it impossible to protect the children from harm. Their   
   solution was to have the cages custom built for the residents.    
      
   However the ombudsman's report concluded that the cages and any practices   
   employing long-term restraints "are clearly illegal and are in direct   
   contradiction with the obligation for respect and protection of the human   
   rights of the residents," and he    
   urged the Greek government to take immediate steps to rectify the situation.    
      
   But after almost five years the only changes are superficial.    
      
   Some of the wooden bars have been painted and funding was found to turn the   
   day room into a soft-play area - but there is still no-one to engage with the   
   residents, who sit alone in the room on plastic mats rocking and staring at   
   the walls while an    
   assistant watches from the doorway.    
      
   There is only one nurse and one assistant per floor responsible for more than   
   20 residents - there is no permanent doctor at the centre.    
      
   When residents need to go to hospital, they are accompanied by one of the   
   nurses which means more than 20 residents are left in the care of just one   
   person.    
      
   A person being fed through the bars of a caged bed, this photograph taken in   
   2008    
   A child being fed through the bars of his bed in 2008    
   "On a nightshift I was often left alone with three assistants, who are not   
   even nurses, to care for more than 60 patients. If there were any medical   
   problems with the children there was no one to ask for help except God," says   
   a senior nurse who recently    
   retired from the centre and spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity.    
      
   She says the cages were necessary. "We fought to have those caged beds built   
   to give the children more freedom. Before that the residents were permanently   
   tied by their arms and legs to their beds.    
      
   "Anyway, the children are used to them now. They like them."    
      
   Local doctor George Gotis who has been volunteering his services at the centre   
   for more than two decades also sees the cages in a positive light.    
      
   "I believe this is one of the best institutions for disabled children not only   
   Greece but in Europe," he says.    
      
      
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