The trial for the mistreatment that occurred in the Montalto di Fauglia
facility, in the province of Pisa, managed by the Stella Marisfoundation is taking place at the Pisa court. In the summer of 2016,
following a complaint from the parents of a young guest, the structure
was placed under control with the installation of microcameras. After
three months of wiretaps, the Pisa prosecutor's office established the
hypothesis of a crime of mistreatment based on the video materials
accumulated. ---- The parents, guardians and other witnesses already
heard by the court have reported the violence suffered by the Montalto
children and documented by video recordings: 284 episodes in less than
three months, violence - therefore - not occasional but structural. The
Scientific Institute - Specialized Hospital - Stella Maris Assistance
Center deals with assistance and treatment of disorders and disabilities
of childhood and adolescence. In fact it is a private institution with
an agreement with the public, managed by the Curia of San Miniato and
financed with public money (millions of euros per year) by the Tuscany
Region, which despite the seriousness of the abuses did not deem it
appropriate to join as a civil party to the process.
Among the guests of the residence, we remember Mattia, who later died in
2018 from suffocation, following blockage of the glottis most likely due
to the prolonged and excessive use of psychotropic drugs. The constant
changes in therapy had led to dysfunctions and risks at mealtimes of
which the family claims they were never informed. Another criminal case
is underway for this matter, the trial in first instance ended with no
responsibility on the part of the doctors and the structure.
The trial for mistreatment has been going on extremely slowly for more
than five years: the hearings are too sparse considering the very high
number of people invited to testify. In fact, it is the largest trial
for violence against people with disabilities in Italy. At the moment
there are 15 defendants. They also include the two doctors who managed
the facility and the health director of Stella Maris. Two defendants
left the scene: an operator who negotiated the sentence and the General
Director Roberto Cutajar who, having chosen the abbreviated procedure,
was sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison and was then acquitted
in the appeal process.
As the technical consultant, Professor Alfredo Verde, called to report
on the events that occurred, wrote in his report: "Reading the documents
of this proceeding we certainly found mention of a long tradition of
abuse and violence on the part of the operators, rooted over the years,
and partly tolerated, partly ignored by the management of the
structures". And again: "Such evident violence raises the possibility of
hypothesizing that other violence occurred in less public contexts." "In
these situations degenerations develop in which violence and oppression
become the tools used every day, and the institution loses its
therapeutic characteristics to become a merely coercive and afflictive
place".
The technical report also states that "the behavior of the operators
appeared typical of total institutions in which not only the guests are
punished, but the punishment is also meted out in a situation of extreme
visibility (such as the refectory), in which the guests they silently
and acquiescently watch the treatment suffered by their companions: a
sort of theatre". Professor Verde further states: "Institutional
thinking presupposes, implies and justifies violence, which can be
manifest or even just hinted at, therefore also assuming a symbolic
function".
From the point of view of the technical report, what happened in the
structure managed by Stella Maris then becomes emblematic of the
coercive and degrading devices inherent in this type of structure, where
people, frequently reduced to objects, become the target of daily
violence and oppression . Places where physical and pharmacological
restraint is often customary and where bullying is ordinary and structural.
We believe it is important not to turn off the spotlight on such
widespread, widespread, non-episodic violence, accepted and supported
daily by the silence of many "professionals", technicians and operators,
assistants and educators. We would like to start from here, from the
system of silence that supports these abuses. In no case can the lack of
personnel and structures justify the use of violent and coercive
practices. Even the arguments of "safety reasons", "state of necessity"
or "aggressive people", which are often invoked in departments or
structures, must be rejected as they are based on the still widespread
prejudice of the potential danger of "madness". ". Many believe, due to
cultural attitude or training, that it is justifiable to subject people
diagnosed as mentally ill to coercive means, that it is in the order of
things and corresponds to their own well-being, without ever asking what
those directly involved think about it.
The problem therefore is to overcome the internment model, and not to
re-propose the same mental hospital mechanisms and devices. The moment
you reproduce the same practices (isolation, mechanical and
pharmacological restraint, the obligation to take care), the logic of
the total institution is reproduced and spreads to the wards, structures
and healthcare residences such as that of Montalto di Fauglia: if there
is the idea of the person as a dangerous subject who must be isolated,
wherever he is placed it will always be a mental hospital. A concrete
path to overcoming total institutions necessarily passes through the
development of a widely spread non-segregationist culture, capable of
practicing principles of freedom, solidarity and valorization of human
differences, as opposed to the repressive and homogenizing methods of
psychiatry.
Antonin Artaud Anti-Psychiatric Collective
via San Lorenzo 38, 56100 Pisa
antipsichiatriapisa@inventati.org
www.artaudpisa.noblogs.org 3357002669
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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