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Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Politics, Society
Innocent lives spend their dull days tied up at their beds. Some are enclosed in real wooden cages equipped just with a mattress. Children with physical or mental problems just eat and vegetate there. Caretakers have little time for the children of the Children’s Care Centre (KEPEP) in Lechaina, in Peloponnese… A report by a British physiotherapist, who offered voluntary work from July to December 2009, unveiled the drama of the children and the Middles Ages conditions in a European member country at the dawn of 21st century.
“Shocked by the Children’s Pain”
“I was shocked by the pain these children experience every day” the physiotherapist wrote in her report. There are children with “who have a kinetic potential live in wooden cages with only one layer in it.”
Seven children and 70 teenagers with physical or mental problems vegetate in the Children’s Centre, live a non-life, forgotten by the social services and sometimes by their parents as well. The children and the teenagers have various problems from autism to Down syndrome, to paralysis and brain damage or genetic problems.
“The daily room is a large room with carpet and walls painted with indifferent colours, there is a television playing, but no chairs, no toys or anything” wrote the volunteer in her exposing report. “ Every day the caretakers change the diapers of all children without any privacy. Also showers, 3 times per week, take place collectively”.
“Some of the children are autistic or have impaired vision. However, there are some that are aware and can well understand . When forced to live in these conditions they often hit their heads against the wall or uproot their hair (an indication of serious psychological trauma in children). They often hear music from the radio, which is a certain stimulus, but the rooms are bare and very hot in summer”.
The physiotherapist describes further with black colours they lack of financial means, caretakers and medical experts, the indifference of the caretakers, the absence of creative, physiologist and psychologist therapies in order to provide these children with even a minimum quality of life.
“Only 16% of the children enjoy therapeutic physiotherapy and thus the easy cases, not the severe ones that needed it more”, she stressed.
These are only some the experts from the volunteer’s report, holder of a diploma by the Cardiff University in UK. She had sent her report to a local website that published together with pictures and caused an uproar in the Greek society.
Video: Greek state NET TV – see the shocking pictures in the first 30 seconds!
The Reaction of the State
NET’s reporter stressed that only 13 caretakers and one doctor work at the Centre.
“Proudly” Health Minister, Andreas Loverdos, allowed the media to entre the facilities , interview the manager and make reports.
The manager said that the children are tied up after a written order by the psychiatrist of the Children’s Centre, in order to prevent self-injuring, and spoke of lack of caretakers. The minister promised to transfer 5 employees within the next days.
A Children’s Centre with Bad Past
However the unacceptable living conditions for the children in the
KEPEP of Lechaina are not new. Daily
Eleftherotypia stressed several cases of children mistreatment there and even “mysterious” deaths. With the trials of those responsible to have been postponing from one year to the next.
“More than thirty innocent children’s souls with disabilities have ‘escaped the hell’ of KEPEP Lechaina, Ilia from 1988 up today. They ‘left’ quietly without the responsible to publish the exact causes and the cirtumstances of their deaths. Everytime the death became public and was subject of journalistic investigation it revealed the revealed the tragedy experienced by the children and the neglect by those responsible.”
In a country with no facilities or just ridiculous allowances for people disabilities, many families feel overwhelmed when a child does not develop the normal way. They turn them to a specialized institution, sometimes preferring to forget their existence. What happens there is a tragedy behind closed doors
Will the five new employees rescue the children from their every day drama?
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