Psychiatric Director: Don't bring us homeless and spruce to clinics

Mecianaj has also talked about conditions within the clinic, while calling on institutions not to lead homeless and smug people who do not need hospital treatment.

Full interview of Psychiatric Clinic Director Shaban Mecina: 

Periscope: How many are currently being treated in this hospital, and what are the most frequent cases of disease that are presented for treatment?

Shaban Mecina: Currently, over 40 patients are being treated in the Psychiatric Clinic. While the clinic's overall capacities in various departments are 68 beds. So we can fully accept 68 patients in different departments and services.

As for psychopaths, they're different. They suppress psychotical disorders, include acute or chronic ones, and then they are infectious disorders, personality disorders, addiction diseases, and other disorders.

Periscope: What was the longest time you had a patient in the hospital here?

Shaban Mecina: The time of the patient's stay at the Psychiatric Clinic is also defined through the treatment protocol and depending on the psychotheology that presents him, depending on the speed of improving his condition, then the decision is made to release from the clinic. At times, though, some patients for various causes also stay longer in clinics.

Periscope: We're talking more specifically about the case of the elderly who spent four months in clinics.

Shaban Mecina: He is a 60-year-old person who is back somewhere in mid-October through the Department for Reintegration in order to be repatriated to Kosovo. He has returned from a Western country, specifically Germany. This person can be treated in mental health centers, or at best, in the centres for reintegration, no problem, where he would receive proper daily treatment and find shelter for him, who would continue his normal life in the community.

Periscope: What is his current state of health?

Shaban Mecina: Although the patient has psychiatric diagnosis, this is a chronic schizophrenic. It is currently presented as stable. It's getting better and I'm saying we don't keep them in this situation.

Periscope: During this period of his stay here at the clinic, have there been visits from his family or other relatives?

Unfortunately because of his arrival in the clinic, there was only one or two visits from his relatives but not from his immediate family. But they have not promised that this person can return to their midst. The concrete reasons we do not know. So it's about the wealth issue or if there's any place there is.

But we know that he has been in the West for some 20 years, so other people have not expressed interest in taking this person among them. So we've been looking for and communicating with official persons for repatriation that as soon as this person has a solution, he has a shelter, a food supply, a clothing, and yet a daily treatment at the mental health center.

Periscope: But do you know if he has a close family? Marriage mates or children, brothers, sisters? Do you have any information?

Shaban Mecina: It's pretty much family anomnesia. We've realized that he's been living in Germany for a long time, he's been married and he's actually divorced. According to him, there are two more children. But we have no contact, or knowledge of what relationship parents-children are in. According to reports from the patient, the child is left in Germany.

Periscope: What is the situation with the admission and accommodation of other patients at the clinic?

Shaban Mecina: Psychiatric clinic faces patients who are homeless almost every day, roam the streets and in fact, police find cases from inside Kosovo, from Pristina... that bring them to the Psychiatry Clinic unjustly. Although there is no indifference for treatment at the Psychiatric Clinic. Let's take the emergency city center, or the police sometimes drive these patients they find on the street somewhere and most of them don't present an absolute indicator for treatment at the Psychiatry Clinic. That's why I've always appealed in this case, even in this case, that primary health care, of course, will be taken care of and do the training of these patients regularly and know what is needed for them. Because the Psychiatric Clinic cannot be the center of shelter for the homeless or the spruce who may even have a psychiatric problem, but it does not present an acute problem that means being received in aspital manner. So I wanted this appeal through your media to be careful, and these patients who find them on the street, whether they are alcoholic or have mental backlogs, are simply homeless, to see what problems they have, what problems they have, and what institutions they have to deal with. And not just deal with or bring to the Psychiatric Clinic.

Periscope: Are there times when patients inside the clinic or going out of clinic cause a scandal?

Shaban Mecina: Generally based on the Law on Mental Health, it also offers involuntarily treatment. So patients who are not citizens of their own condition have an infected judgment and are simply pose a danger to themselves but also to the other circle. They are given treatment under closed conditions or invasive treatment as we call it. But there are also open departments where patients who are hospitals, receive therapy, and can move outside the clinic. Of course, it is from time to time that these patients abandon the Clinic, but most of them return on time or some return with organ help as well.

Periscope: They have the freedom to get out of the clinic?

Shaban Mecina: While called a free department, patients can move outside the clinic. But in advance, these patients brought about the satisfying improvement in health and operation. So they have this opportunity to stay in open departments, to get treatment, but they also have freedom of movement, of course, until the clinic yard.

Periscope: What are the conditions within psychiatry?

Shaban Mecina: The conditions offered are currently acceptable for patients, for treatment, but we always insist that these be improved and more appropriate, because these less patients are visited by relatives, often they don't have well-deserved care. Family care, especially. So creating a better and more hospitable environment at the Psychiatric Clinic would also be in the interest of the most efficient treatment of these patients.

Periscope: How many people are accommodated in rooms?

Shaban Mecina: Rooms usually have two or three beds. So depending on the number of patients we have, it's set up. But departments are divided by psychology. It used to be gender-based division, but now we've decided that patients will be placed on the basis of psychopathology.

Periscope: According to statistics, are there more male or female patients?

Shaban Mecina: It's rough somewhere. No difference. Maybe it represents that gender ratio that's in the healthy population, that's conditional.

Periscope: Do they have any activity, since their attitude is longer than other hospitals?

Shaban Mecina: While in clinics, we try to offer activities, therapies, that is, forms of psychotherapial support, forms like Occupy therapy, support therapy, individual, group therapy, etc. However, these therapies usually continue to take them into community centers, such as mental - health centers. However, the Psychiatric Clinic divides the fate of other clinics as well as QKUKUA which does not have its own budget and always plans the best that is for its patients. So sometimes we lack tools that we could engage more and offer more activity to these patients.

Periscope: Has the old man been asked to join his family or to return to another relative, or is he the environment, and is his purpose here to stay?

Shaban Mecina: I think that with his capacity and the ability of the tried who present it, of course, we see a tendency for him to return to the country of origin, to his habitation, to his village, and to continue his life. But that will certainly depend on the possibilities these people's Reintegration offices will offer.

This case, but also cases that are required temporarily to be placed in the Psychiatric Clinic, I insist and appeal that competent organs act faster and more effectively for these patients to be sent to their home. It wouldn't be human to get the patient out of the clinic, to throw out the clinic a person who is ultimately our patient. Although improved, stabilised, and can continue in community life. But we appeal and are in contact from time to time with people who are forced to reintegration and place this person in a shelter or in a settlement that will ensure the rest of their lives.

Interviewed: Missini Horseyard