Croatia became the 28th nation to join the European Union, with the rights and responsibilities that this status entails. However, as part of the EU, it may be time for Croatia to pull up its sleeves, reform its mental health system and meet the bloc’s human rights standards.
According to a report published by Mental Health Europe in 2012, known as Mapping Exclusion, Croatia hosts almost 8,000 people living in psychiatric hospitals or large social care institutions for users and ex-users of mental health services. Patient wellbeing is greatly at risk in these institutions, as they are basically living in outdated forms of residential service. These institutions have poor quality outcomes and often threaten patient wellness with human rights abuses. However, Croatia is making progress in developing community-based services instead of residential institutions.
Yet while Croatia has set up a National Deinstitutionalisation Strategy for the period 2011-2018, the strategy had significant limitations. By 2016, the government plans to move 30% of people with disabilities from institutions to community-based settings, but by 2018, under the same strategy, only 20% of mental health service users will be likewise better off. Moreover, MHE member organisation Sto koluri has signalled some alarming recent developments; earmarking 85% of the social welfare funds for existing residential institutions for people with disabilities, while community-based services remain very limited in number.
Another problem is that the government promotes foster care for adults with mental health problems, but this is a completely inappropriate form of support and can be considered a new form of institutionalisation. According to Human Rights Watch, 20 adults with disabilities are being assigned per ‘family home’. Furthermore, there are legal forms of both plenary and partial guardianship for adults in the new member state, even though this contradicts the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This has been ratified by Croatia and signed and ratified by the EU, but almost 16,355 people in 2011 were deprived of their legal capacity in Croatia. Finally, the Protection of Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities Act is meant to regulate involuntary psychiatric treatment in Croatia, but reports from civil organisations show that judicial control is not applied when it comes to people fully deprived of legal capacity.