How does the treatment of adolescents in neuropsychiatric dispensaries work?

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The DOXA correspondent Augustus visited the Children's Psychiatric Hospital in St. Petersburg and talked with adolescents, for whom being in the state clinic became hell.

The names of some hero_in are changed for security reasons.

• Author

  

  Author

  August

• Editor

  Editor

  Dasha Manzhura

• Illustrator

  Illustrator

  Ira Grebenshchikova

• Publication

  July 13, 2023

“Look into your eyes. What to bring you? "

“I want to go home! The doctor would let me go as soon as possible, ” the ten -year -old girl shouts on the steps at the entrance to the psychiatric hospital. S. S. Mnukhin in St. Petersburg. This place is considered the main clinic for minors, where children and adolescents from different areas of the city fall. There are guys who survived a suicidal attempt, brought up from orphanages sent to “re -education” and those with whom the parents did not find a common language and decided to “fix”. Almost noon. The meeting of parents and children with the features of mental development ends in ten minutes. Mom is trying to find out from the other girl who looks 11 years old, how her days take place in the hospital. The questions are pouring faster than the child manages to answer.

“Tell me what you are doing? Are you playing? This is an important point. Look at me. Look into the eyes, in the eyes. What to bring you? " - Mom does not calm down. The girl asks her about chocolate cookies and apple juice. In response to a request, the woman nods, but calls her daughter "a voracious frog." Throughout the dialogue, the mother sends the child conflicting messages: from promises to go to the water park to a fever for weight. Due to excitement, the child “lights up” the consonants, it turns out to be inaudible to which her mother asks her to “speak normally”. The girl continues to ask home.

“I look at your hands and understand ... Look that you have here. Well, what is it? Scars, ” the woman translates the topic. The girl lowers her head and quietly mumbles two syllables in which the letter “m” or “n” is heard. “It sounds as if I'm a nanny, not a mother,” the woman corrects her. The daughter is corrected, but begins to howl, because the mother will not take her home. The woman takes the child for the forearms, turns to her and continues: "You are here because you are not controlled by yourself." The child breaks down again and asks home. “Look, you are not listening again. You are here to learn how to hear. Understand? I have the feeling that I do not need to come to you if you cry like that. Can you hear me? Reception! " - Mom abandons irritably. The dad of the girl, who stood with a black bag and a box from juice, intervenes in the dialogue. He is interested in how he calms himself. “Doctors here to help, you learn from them. Talk with aunt as a doctor how to learn how to control yourself, ” the man turns to the child. The family was left alone on the stairs, behind them at the iron door is watched by the PND nurse in a white coat.

"From the orphanage there can be children for months, and nobody cares about them"

In a psychiatric hospital, there are both children who have guardians and parents, as well as educated orphanages. One of them is a 13-year-old Misha, he was put to the state clinic back in late spring due to “violent” behavior in the orphanage. He fought with the children from the elementary grades of the correctional school. Now nurses are dripping a strong antipsychotic - haloperidol, he is bred in water and taken during food. Envisolics are also called antipsychotics, they are prescribed for adolescents with uncontrolled flashes of aggression and increased excitability. But Misha immediately tells me: it is impossible to abandon them. Because of the adolescent, the teenager’s hands are shaking. We meet with Misha on the playground, I bring his favorite tomato juice and chebureks. According to the rules, fatty children are impossible, but many parents close their eyes to this. An employee of Lenenergo sits to the left of us The largest electric grid company of St. Petersburg ”in the form, his son is chewing Burger from KFC. Ten minutes later, red stains appear on Misha's sneakers: he could not hold the glass with juice and splashed part on the shoes.

I drink these drops either from psychos, or from something. And from what - I don't know

Misha admits that he is not informed when he can go to the summer camp with other guys from the orphanage.

The practice of forced hospitalization of "difficult teenagers" from orphanages was publicized in 2010. Then, four children were sent from the orphanage No. 19 of the Krasnogvardeisky district of St. Petersburg for treatment to a psychiatric hospital. But they started talking about this only in March 2011, when a 16-year-old teenager jumped out of the window when he saw the Brigade of the orderlies, which came for him. He fled from the orphanage in slippers, a T -shirt and sports pants and came to his former teacher. The latter turned to Svetlana Agapitova, who was then the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child in St. Petersburg. When Agapitova arrived at the orphanage, other educated people admitted to her that the administration of the orphanage constantly used the method of “upbringing” of children and adolescents through psychiatric hospitals.

For 13 years, there are few changes in the relations of the administrations of orphanages and “uncomfortable teenagers”. “From the orphanage there [in psychiatric hospitals] children can lie for months, and no one cares about them. They can be beaten, dragged by the hair, push, give a kick in the ass, ” says psycho -activist Lisa Werner, who was in the children's hospital. Mnukhina in St. Petersburg. Her words are confirmed by the temporary guardian of Misha, who takes a teenager for the weekend in order to teach household things like washing things. “Children who do not obey, attach to the bed, can inject amenin Blocks psychomotor agitation, reduces aggressiveness. Among the side effects: confusion of consciousness, dizziness, sleep disorder. . It was so at all times, nothing changes. Children, who at least visit parents, can let go for a walk on the weekend, but orphans - no, only on weekdays they take out, ” she concludes.

Now the mid -July. There is no air conditioner in the Misha House, but the windows cannot be opened (the administration explains this by the fact that adolescents can escape or jump out of the window and cause injury). The guy lies on the second floor. There is also “supervision” - as adolescents call the ward with openings without doors, which is completely visible by doctors. Everyone who went to the hospital or transferred from another department enters it. “There was absolutely nothing to do there. One of the nurses brought a catalog from the Pyaterochka there, and they studied him intensively. The books were, about five, fairy tales. They have been there for a long time, there were no half of the pages, ” says Lisa Werner. The girl was sent to the children's hospital. Mnukhin for the escape from the house, but in the end, and there she was expected by violence from which she tried to leave.

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"The nurses either yelled or ulcer, well, or in extreme cases, they beat"

“Supervision” becomes a starting point for violence against adolescents in psychiatric clinics. Alina was put in the hospital. Mnukhina parents, when at the age of 12 she inflicted deep cuts for herself. She was diagnosed with psychosis. “The moment came, [in the hospital] I was divided, weighed, and all the piercing was removed. And, what confuses me the most, they forced me to take off my underpants to check the presence of drugs, cigarettes and blades. The first days I kept my diary. ” The girl says that in the supervisory chamber there were everything: adolescents who survived the attempt of suicide, “self -hubs”, children with neuro -excuses. But even the topic of death caused a mockery from the medical staff of the hospital: “There was a girl in supervision with us, who wanted to hang herself, but she was saved, and the teacher after that said:

And what do you not get into the loop, if so bad here?

In “Supervision”, Alina behaved quietly and obediently, for this on the fourth day she was transferred to a common chamber. But there, the violence did not stop there - on the contrary, it received a new round: “Either the nurses did not say anything, either yelling, or ulzvili, well, or in extreme cases, they beat. All children with psychoses and shisa beat, ” Alina explains. Now she and her mother plans to write a statement to the police to the hospital administration due to cruel treatment of children.

Alina's most traumatic experience is associated with the nurse Tatyana Petrovna. “ I would like to say:“ The kingdom is heavenly, ”but she is still alive. On the first day, she told me to take off my pants and stand in cancer. I am: "Emm, what?" It was in the common bathroom, the girl, whom we later met, watched this from the side. And I was bent in front of her straight (to take the analysis). I was so ashamed, I started to cry. To which they answered me that I am fucked up, I cry, ” says Alina. The humiliation continued during a quiet hour: the nurse did not like that the children snore in a dream. “She walked around the ward, and said:“ So that you, bitches, suffocate in a dream. ” I thought that she was some witch and I would really suffocate in a dream, ” the teenager shares. Other patients at medical forums wrote that this orderly humiliated and beat children and adolescents and could steal gearboxes from her parents.

“ They told me:“ You are a threat to society and primarily for yourself , ”“ You will be better. ” As a result, everything got worse, ” Alina continues. The girl was in the children's hospital. Mnukhina only once. During this time, she had to find friends, but she immediately stipulates: “This interaction was forced. In this fool you go crazy with loneliness and degrading, so you had to look for acquaintances. ” Now Alina is waiting for adulthood in order not to undergo treatment in a children's clinic, but to consult a private doctor for adults. “I know for sure that this place will simply destroy you as a person,” she concludes.

Some pages of the diary that Alina led in the hospital

Photo: Alina Archive

Other teenagers throughout Russia live similar experience. In one of the publics, where people with a disorder of food behavior share their stories, the post of a girl who visited the children's hospital. Mnukhina, collected dozens of responses. “Many of us (especially children from“ supervision ”) without exaggeration all the time insulted and beat if we behave the way they do not like. Educators and doctors know everything about everyone and gossip, ” writes a girl who was diagnosed with anorexia.

She answered in the comments: “She lay there, even according to the description with the same people as in the post. Before going to bed, we sat on 5 shocks and bazaarized until the nurses drove us with brooms to drink tabletos and sleep. ” In the answers to such stories, the participants of groups are also looking for those with whom they could lie together in the same hospital.

“ Oh, you think what they give. I thought you gave you so and eat, without question "

“The department is bad, it is good. This is the second time here, everyone knows me here, ” Misha boasts, who was again sent to“ re -education ”. And he immediately lists what they feed here: they mainly give pasta with liver, boiled potatoes and vegetables. There are five people in the teenager’s ward, but one has already been discharged. Today, all four have been punished because they had a fight and broke a chair. For this, as Misha says, teenagers were injected with a strong antipsychotic - Aminazin.

While we are talking, on a neighboring bench, mom is trying to explain to her son, who probably has a tourist syndrome A mental disorder, which is characterized by multiple motor and vocal tics in humans. It begins to manifest itself already in childhood. What needs to be “tolerate a little” while the doctors select the medicine.

“If I stop twitching, will you pull me out?” - asks the teenager.

- Maybe. Let's go here, smell the roses, ”Mom replies.

Misha and I also get up to hide from the sun in the shade. A 13-year-old boy with the teacher is coming towards us. He smiles and asks how we are walking.

“Do you have enough hours to take a walk?”

- Well, he is not a special fan of walking, - the teacher interferes

-No, no, amateur! - the guy protests.

It turns out that this teenager is also from the orphanage. He is in a psychiatric hospital for the sixth time. “When I drink all the medicines, then they will write me out later,” says Nikita. He is 13 years old, he graduated from the sixth grade of a correctional school. When asked what kind of pills, he is inaudible for something. “Oh, you think what they give. I thought you gave you so and eat, without question, ”the teacher tries to joke and laughs awkwardly. - You are checked [for whether you drink medicine]? They do the right thing, otherwise you are cunning. How can you recover if you don’t have pills, right? It is better, on the contrary, to accept everything and go home soon. ” The boy nods from hopelessness, he does not know where to put his hands, and wringing them behind them. But our dialogue continues:

“These pills ... It will be for many years.”

- Why do you think so?

- I don't think I'm sure. I asked them [nurse].

- Do these pills help?

- They help, of course, and, it seems, is very strong.

Misha says that he does not like the treatment here. The teacher interrupts the teenager: “Are you so calmer? So it seemed to go, darted, dared, did not know what to do, and then he was healed and became more calmly. It seems to me better. Still not from evil, everything is good, so it’s normal. ”

Psychologist Alena Sinkevich explains that children “at a triple dose of chlor resour and haloperidol” are deprived of the opportunity to develop academically and simply socialize, basically know the world. When the only response to the mental characteristics of the child becomes medicines, a person loses the opportunity to recognize and study independently.

"The package was taken, and you will be taken away if you behave badly"

The hour allotted for a walk is coming to an end. A six -year -old girl is lucky in a stroller grandmother with black hair, carelessly cleaned by the ears. The child still wants to be with her, so he is naughty and screams. “The last time we have taken the package, and you will be taken away, [if] you will be bad [yourself]. I want ... what kind of want? A big girl is already, ” the woman grins. We approach a small plastic door, a sheet A4 is glued on its glass in a cellophane file. On the sheet, recommendations for parents are written: what can be brought to the children to the hospital and what - no.

Here, from permitted products - fruits, juices in small bags, water without gas, cookies, waffles, gingerbread cookies and sweets only in “factory, sealed packages”. The list of prohibited things is much larger: you can not bring cheese, sausage, chips and crackers, glazed cheese and cakes, cakes and ice cream. In fact, children still eat them: in the garbage on the site for teenagers, candy wrappers are lying from, and parents bring craft packages with fast food to meetings with children. You can’t even cherries, plums, grapes and apricots. It is forbidden to transmit plasticine, felt -tip pens, paints and sharpeners from stationery. Products that are not included in this list are simply thrown away. At the end of the document, the signature: "Thank you for understanding."

Parents slowly take the children to the department. The girl with a drooping look goes by the arm with her father, he tells her: "There is no one more important than you." The guys from the orphanage look for each other on the site to go together. The next meeting with loved ones is a week later.