Drug rehab centres, mental hospitals in city embroiled in torture allegations

FE Team | Published: November 19, 2020 00:18:53

The recent killing of a police officer has opened the floodgates to accusations that drug rehabilitation centres and mental hospitals in Dhaka physically torture patients, reports bdnews24.com.
After Anisul Karim Shipon, a senior assistant superintendent of police, was beaten to death at Mind Aid Hospital in Adabor, the news agency spoke to some patients who sought treatment in different drug rehabilitation centres and mental health hospitals in the city.
Most of them said they had experienced physical assault at the drug rehabilitation centres.
According to the Department of Narcotics Control, Bangladesh has 355 drug rehabilitation centres, including four run by the government. Of them, 43.66 per cent are in Dhaka.
Some of the rehabilitation centres also offer treatment to mentally ill patients, although the number of hospitals authorised to treat mental illness is 15, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.
Mind Aid in Adabor was operating as a mental health hospital besides treating the drug addicts, though it had no licence for either.
On November 09, ASP Anisul was beaten to death just after he went there for treatment of mental issues. At least seven employees were seen pinning Anisul down to the floor, while two were hitting him with their elbows in a video footage.
When the news agency spoke to the former patients of different rehabilitation centres and mental hospitals, a woman described how she was assaulted by a nurse in a private clinic for mental illness in Dhaka.
The woman, who works in a private company, said she had nothing to complain about the treatment she took for postpartum psychosis for 10 days at the clinic, but she cannot forget the assault.
"It was after 15 or 20 days after I delivered my second child. I still suffered from pain following a C-section surgery, but I forgot about my child. All I used to remember was my first child. 'Where is my (first) child?' I used to think and look for him in the hospital," the woman said.
"Staying awake at night, I used to check all the rooms in the hospital for my (first) child. I had no idea where I was. All the lights used to be turned off apart from the ones in the nurse's room. I used to go to that room repeatedly to find my child. It was then the nurse got mad at me and hit me."
She had the bruises visible for days after leaving the hospital, the woman said.
She never counted it as an assault when the hospital staff pinned her down after she refused to take an injection, but the incident of the nurse hitting her has remained fresh in her mind.
"Though I was not my usual self at that time, the insult really affected me," added the woman who spoke on the condition that she remained anonymous for this story. Physical torture as a means to control the mentally ill patients was a method used ages ago, as it is generally hard to deal with them when they become violent. Doctors, however, are now averse to the idea of the use of abusing mentally ill patients physically.