P02-222 - New Social Awareness as an Imperative for the Promotion of the Rights of Mentally ill Persons in Serbia

Abstract

The challenge of modern civilization is to enable mentally ill persons conducting designed and productive lives and enjoy the benefits offered by social environment. Unfortunately, although we have stepped into 21 st century in many parts of the world, a considerable number of mentally ill people are still facing a great difficulty in achieving even elementary human rights. In Serbia there are still very large psychiatric hospitals with a capacity of over 700 beds. Also, treatment of mentally ill persons is implemented in terms of completely undeveloped system based on community psychiatry. To Serbia improved Quality of life of mentally ill persons is required radical change of attitude not only professional services but also in many other parts of social community. Therefore requires urgent development of entirely new legislation in the field of mental health care. This paper presents practical recommendations that would allow the addition of protection of the rights of mentally ill persons and define contemporary principles for their improvement.