Santa Rosita Honduras

At the mental hospital Santa Rosita, 45 km north of the capital Tegucigalpa, lives 200 patients.

There is a great shortage of medicines, both in terms of quantity and quality. Trade with medicine is governed by what is called medical mafia. Money for the drugs disappears in corruption and poor control. Although medications that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration reach patients.

The hospital has no diapers, no soap and not enough clothes. Patients often go around with wet pants. The hospital is constantly understaffed.

He has been at the Santa Rosita since 1976 and has epilepsy. His face is deformed, the shaved head crossed with scars and bumps. The staff has no control over his seizures.

Some of the patients have been here for 38 years, since the hospital began accepting mentally ill in 1976. In the area there is a cemetery.

Closed section for men. The man on the right is blind and has Parkinson's disease. He can not control his movements and get to eat lying on the ground.

Santa Rosita Hospital has become a place where the community leaving men, women and children that you do not know where to make of. Lack of access to medicine and care reduces the potential for recovery. Patients who do not improve or are abandoned end up on inpatient care.

The hospital was built in 1966 as a hospice for tuberculosis patients. Safety is not adapted for the patients, there are rocks and glass that can be made into weapons. It has also happened that patients have been bitten by dengue mosquitoes, snakes and coyotes. .

There is not enough food in the hospital. Sometimes the portions are very small, sometimes the food is rotten. Previously, patients received snacks morning and afternoon. Patients often go hungry and many are malnourished.

Psychotic patient who had been locked in this solitary confinement for ten years. When he came to Santa Rosita, he had murdered his niece. Inside the hospital, he has committed a murder. He only talks about murder.