{"id":286176,"date":"2018-06-14T15:40:29","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T11:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epress.am?p=286176"},"modified":"2018-09-23T13:42:56","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T09:42:56","slug":"spitak-care-house-at-risk-of-closure-residents-afraid-they-might-be-sent-back-to-vardenis-or-spitak-clinics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2018\/06\/14\/spitak-care-house-at-risk-of-closure-residents-afraid-they-might-be-sent-back-to-vardenis-or-spitak-clinics.html","title":{"rendered":"Spitak Care House at Risk of Closure; Residents Afraid They Might Be Sent Back to Vardenis or Spitak Clinics"},"content":{"rendered":"

– It was bad at the Vardenis psychiatric hospital.<\/em><\/p>\n

– How bad was it?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

– They\u2019d beat [the patients], tie them up.<\/em><\/p>\n

– Did they beat you?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

– Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n

– What for?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

– No idea\u2026 Even if we behaved well, they\u2019d find a reason to beat us.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Spitak care house, which was founded two years ago and currently houses 14 patients, is now at risk of being shut down due to financial hardship. The majority of people who live here have been diagnosed with schizophrenia; their main concern is not to be sent back to the Vardenis or Sevan psychiatric hospital. Some have even threatened to commit suicide in case they are sent back.<\/em><\/p>\n

They won\u2019t take us back to Vardenis, will they?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The nursing home is located in the Italian district of Spitak; it has for two years been housing people sent here from various psychiatric clinics in Armenia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are one big family here, a community. This place is unlike any other psychiatric clinic. I\u2019ve lived in the clinics in Sevan and Vardenis. They would treat us like a cattle there, take us to the lunchroom every morning and make us stand from 7 until 9. It wasn\u2019t good, to put it mildly,\u201d 38-year-old Vahagn says with a smile on his face.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Vahagn used to live in Moscow; he studied psychology for 4 years. The man is quite computer-savvy and often helps the locals with their computers, updates the programs and takes care of other issues.<\/p>\n

A special committee in 2016 selected just over a dozen patients with relatively mild mental disorders from various clinics and sent them here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an idea to gather here a group of people who are not in dire need of drugs, can take care of themselves and work. It was not advisable to keep them in those clinics with people with more serious problems,\u201d Bavakan Petrosyan, the director of the center, says.<\/p>\n

She recalls that at first it was really hard for the patients to adjust to the new place since they had been living in closed and isolated psychiatric wards for around 14-15 years: \u201cThe positive changes were even stressful for them. Everyone was having a hard time adjusting, but eventually they managed to.\u201d<\/p>\n