Drug rehab centres, mental hospitals in Dhaka are embroiled in torture allegations

The recent killing of a police officer has opened the floodgates to accusations that drug rehabilitation centres and mental hospitals in Dhaka physically torture patients.

After Anisul Karim Shipon, a senior assistant superintendent of police, was beaten to death at Mind Aid Hospital in Adabor, bdnews24.com spoke to some patients who sought treatment in different drug rehabilitation centres and mental health hospitals in the city.

Most of them said they had experienced physical assault at the drug rehabilitation centres.

According to the Department of Narcotics Control, Bangladesh has 355 drug rehabilitation centres, including four run by the government. Of them, 43.66 percent are in Dhaka.

Some of the rehabilitation centres also offer treatment to mentally ill patients, although the number of hospitals authorised to treat mental illness is 15, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.

Mind Aid in Adabor was operating as a mental health hospital besides treating the drug addicts, though it had no licence for either.

On Nov 9, ASP Anisul was beaten to death just after he went there for treatment of mental issues. At least seven employees were seen pinning Anisul down to the floor, while two were hitting him with their elbows in a video footage.

When bdnews24.com spoke to the former patients of different rehabilitation centres and mental hospitals, a woman described how she was assaulted by a nurse in a private clinic for mental illness in Dhaka.

The woman, who works in a private company, said she had nothing to complain about the treatment she took for postpartum psychosis for 10 days at the clinic, but she cannot forget the assault.

"It was after 15 or 20 days after I delivered my second child. I still suffered from pain following a C-section surgery, but I forgot about my child. All I used to remember was my first child. ‘Where is my (first) child?’ I used to think and look for him in the hospital," the woman said.

“Staying awake at night, I used to check all the rooms in the hospital for my (first) child. I had no idea where I was. All the lights used to be turned off apart from the ones in the nurse's room. I used to go to that room repeatedly to find my child. It was then the nurse got mad at me and hit me."

She had the bruises visible for days after leaving the hospital, the woman said.

She never counted it as an assault when the hospital staff pinned her down after she refused to take an injection, but the incident of the nurse hitting her has remained fresh in her mind.

"Though I was not my usual self at that time, the insult really affected me,” added the woman who spoke on the condition that she remained anonymous for this story.

Physical torture as a means to control the mentally ill patients was a method used ages ago, as it is generally hard to deal with them when they become violent. Doctors, however, are now averse to the idea of the use of abusing mentally ill patients physically.

Drug addicts face the physical torture mostly, as they get very aggressive.

A young man from Mohammadpur, who was admitted to a drug rehabilitation centre in Mirpur two months ago, said he was not sure about the treatment, but the beating was a regular event in the clinic.

“The doctor used to visit once a month or so. Food wasn't bad. But anyone deviating from the rules used to get a good beating from the staff. They used to hit patients with any object they found nearby. Sometimes, they would tie up a patient to their bed."

‘Rony’, another young man who took treatment in a rehabilitation centre in Uttara, shared a similar experience.

“It's no treatment. You have to live there, eat and do some work. Any lapse in the work would lead you to getting assaulted. A baton or any other object would be used for beating patients."

He was beaten right after getting admitted to a drug rehabilitation centre in Adabor, said Hasan Arif.

“They hit me on my hands and legs and blackened one of my eyes. They prevented my mother from meeting me. My mother used to think that I was receiving treatment. They used to give me strong sedative the day before my mother came to see me so that I’d remain drowsy while meeting her.”

That rehabilitation centre was a den for drug peddlers, he alleged.

“I told RAB-2 everything about the centre after leaving it. The RAB raided it and fined them," he said.

Another drug addict, who has received treatment in three rehabilitation centres until now, said he was physically assaulted in two of them.

In most of the cases, families take the unsuspecting patients to the rehabilitation centres, said the drug addict, a software developer by profession. Drug addicts cannot accept it and refuse to stay in the rehabilitation centre. That's when they are tortured physically, he said.

“I suffered it too. Initially, they tie up the mouth with a gamchha (traditional towel). Then they keep pouring water on it. They tie up hands and legs too, and start beating with a baton."

“I don't know what kind of treatment it is," he said.

A few of the drug rehabilitation centres maintain the standards, while some of them are in a “real bad state”, said Dr Helaluddin, the associate professor at the National Institute of Mental Health and Hospital in Dhaka.

Most of the centres create confusion when they mix up mentally ill patients with the drug addicts, he believes.

“Some of them provide treatment without a doctor, while some ask the patients to do gardening; some of centres make the patients say their prayers as part of the treatment regime. They are all acting on their own free will."

The hospitals and clinics should, therefore, be brought under regulation, he said.

A large part of the drug rehabilitation centres are run by the people who were formerly addicts, said Iqbal Masud, the president of Sanjog, a network of drug addiction treatment and rehabilitation centres.

“These people have no idea about how to provide treatment to a patient. They try to apply whatever experience they have, irrespective of what’s right or wrong.”

The authorities should take action against such centres, he said.

“We are criticised because of such institutions. We want the government to take action against them.”

Their network has arranged training to create awareness on the issue, Masud said.

They have received complaints against some drug rehabilitation centres and mental hospitals, said Mehedi Hasan, the assistant director at DNC. Mostly, the complaints were raised against the centres run by the former addicts, he said.

“Physical abuse is never a part of the treatment. This is unlawful. We visit the centres once a month and shut them down if complaints are raised against any of them,” he said of the measures taken by the authorities.