Improving mental health care in Georgia

The Council of Europe is assisting the Georgian prison system to improve the treatment of inmates suffering from mental health problems. The Project “Improving mental health care of persons detained in Georgia” is being implemented as of January 2018 and will last 18 months, until June 2019. The main goal of the project is the development of mental health care services in prison through a systematic approach, revised legislative framework and the strengthening of staff capacity.

A wide range of activities will contribute to achieving the objectives of the project: to strengthen the protection of human rights and improve the treatment, screening, management and rehabilitation of prisoners with mental health problems and to increase the knowledge of staff to provide psychological support to prisoners.

The project is being implemented in close partnership with the Ministry of Corrections, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Office of Public Defender and the civil society organisations.

Project documentation

Useful information

Tbilisi office Website

PROJECT NEWS

Back Increasing the number of trained medical staff of the temporary detention isolators on documenting the injuries and mental health screening tools

On 13-16 April 2018 the Council of Europe Office in Georgia organized training sessions for the doctors working in the temporary detention isolators of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia.

During the training the participants received the comprehensive information on how to apply the screening tools to assess the mental health conditions of the inmates. The purpose of the assessment is to single out those who may be at significant risk for suicide, acute psychotic breakdown, or complications from recent substance abuse from the other prisoners, merely experiencing varying degrees of distress usually associated with arrest, conviction and detention and to place them for specific treatment; additionally the participants increased their knowledge about the following issues: how to assess the risk of self-harm and it’s management; how to document the injuries inflicted upon the alleged torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment according to the recently approved instructions for the doctors.

They have also learnt about how to fill particular forms, what are the main challenges while filling up the existing forms and interpreting the results of the medical examination, how to ascertain the degree of compliance of the injuries with the circumstances described by the inmates. The participants were also equipped with the practical skills on how take proper photographs of the injuries and received the possibility for exchanging the ideas on all the problematic issues they encounter during daily work.

In total, 27 medical staff of the temporary detention isolators were trained during 4 days.

Adoption of special form and instructions for documenting the injuries is of significant importance as proper and timely documentation will contribute to investigating allegations of ill-treatment and fight against impunity. Documents were developed with the assistance of the Council of Europe.

This activity has been organised within the framework of the Project “Improving mental health care of persons detained in Georgia” which is part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia 2016-2019.

Tbilisi 13-16 April