d55d210446f86f380e200d24_m575.jpg

Ending Institutionalized Childhood

Successive governments across central and eastern Europe are responsible for a systemic failure to provide adequate support to families with disabled children, often resulting in abandonment and institutionalization. But that is set to change, as the regions governments have now committed themselves to developing community-based services.

BUDAPEST – In September of this year, the Bulgarian prosecutor launched a homicide investigation into the deaths of 238 children with disabilities, who had been living in state institutions in Bulgaria. The children died over the past decade from malnutrition and starvation, treatable infections, pneumonia, “accidents,” and neglect. Of the 238 cases, 149 children died in the institutions where they lived rather than in a hospital, raising alarm about why, on the brink of death, a child was not transferred immediately to a hospital intensive-care unit.

Abuse and neglect are not unique to Bulgaria. Successive governments across central and eastern Europe are responsible for a systemic failure to provide adequate support to families with disabled children, often resulting in abandonment and institutionalization. Without a stimulating family or family-like setting, such children cannot develop their full potential. Institutions cause deterioration in a child, even where neglect and abuse are absent.

The rate of institutionalization of children with disabilities has remained stable, but is set to be reversed. In November, representatives of member states of the World Health Organization’s Europe region met in Bucharest, where they signed the “European Declaration on the Health of Children and Young People with Intellectual Disabilities and their Families.” The declaration commits governments to improving the health care of children with intellectual disabilities to enhance lifelong development, as well as inclusion and full participation in society, and sets out ten priorities for action, which include empowering children, protecting them against harm and abuse, and transferring care from institutions to the community.

https://prosyn.org/manyE7w