In the summer of 2024, during the months of June and July, I was hospitalized twice at University Psychiatric Clinic Ljubljana, where obvious violations of patient and human rights occurred. I mainly want to describe my own experiences, although the medical staff treated other patients in the same way. I will mention only these two examples, which are more than obvious, but such things happen regularly at the clinic. After external supervision by the ministry and certain demands, the situation has become even worse.
- The department of Prof. Dr. Rok Tavčar
There is nothing specifically bad to say about this doctor personally or about his moral character, which unfortunately could not be said for some other doctors, at least in my opinion. However, he is very arrogant because of his position.
I had broken my left wrist, and because it healed incorrectly and was misdiagnosed, I continued to experience cracking sensations. I also suffer from metabolic syndrome and knee damage, and because of this I was physically limited. Therefore, I had difficulty opening the doors of the building.
However, he said that nowadays people only open doors for Putin, so I would have to do it myself. What a gentleman… As a consequence, the rotation of my wrist was affected and reduced by about 10 percent.
However, he is often absent due to his lectures at the faculty, and the staff in his department violate everything that should exist in a hospital, even basic order, which should come first. If even the most basic requirement for treatment in a psychiatric hospital is violated — namely that nurses, including the head nurse of the department, regularly forget to give patients the medication prescribed by the doctor — then it is no wonder that many other things also go wrong.
The nurses use offensive language, and if you ask them to be polite, they take revenge on you. For example, they may place a glass object in your room, even though such items should not be accessible to patients at all. Some nurses — in fact, many nurses, not only in Dr. Tavčar’s department — shout at patients and show no respectful attitude toward them.
The head nurse throws away patients’ trainers if they are left drying in the bathroom. Mine were Nike trainers, and they were not cheap. She threatened patients that she would throw away anything left drying there. In reality, I believe she stole mine. When I mentioned to her that my Nike trainers had disappeared because of her actions, she became very offended and said that she would file a criminal complaint against me.
Education about breast cancer, including its causes and self-examination, which the head nurse wanted to present with the help of a computer, was not possible because she did not realize that the internet was not working. When she mentioned this to the occupational therapist, the therapist merely shrugged her shoulders and said, “So what?” She then simply read aloud the materials she had prepared.
The security of patients’ personal belongings is also not properly ensured, although the hospital could install locks on the wardrobes and bedside tables. Because of this lack of security, someone completely shattered my cell phone screen when I left it on the bedside table for five minutes during dinner. I had to pay 70 euros for the repair from my own finances.
These are the most evident examples concerning violations of patient rights and human rights, and I am not even mentioning everything.
Human rights violations in Department A4:
Dr. Rok Tavčar himself, despite his positive qualities, demanded complete silence during the night. Because I was suffering from disturbing dreams due to violence I experience at home, I sometimes woke up screaming. His solution was simply that they should give me an injection so that I would remain calm.
As I already mentioned, I have injured knees and used crutches because I have difficulty walking. Despite my requests, they did not provide me with a wheelchair until after I had fallen very badly twice and broken my wrist during the second fall. Only then did they give me a walker, but it was in very poor condition: the brakes did not work, the handles were loose, and a screw was sticking out of the holder, apparently intentionally. It was literally playing with people’s lives.
Dr. Tavčar also demanded that we go outside the building to smoke, even though smoking there was not allowed. Even during heavy rain, they refused to open the smoking room at 6 p.m., claiming that it was against the rules. We all became soaked, and I injured my knee even more because I had to walk to the elevator.
The occupational therapist also behaved very nonchalantly. She demanded that both I and another patient, who was also physically injured, exercise in the morning and go for walks. She then praised the other patient simply for managing to do so, saying that it was “very nice” of her.
Many of us are physically harmed because of weight gain caused by psychiatric medication. In my case, the medication had been prescribed for a completely incorrect diagnosis, which was later changed, but the physical injuries remained.
Together with the above-mentioned lady, with whom I got along very well and whom I knew from poetry performances that we had participated in together, we both agreed that after the doctors’ strike in Slovenia, conditions in other medical fields had improved, but at the University Psychiatric Clinic Ljubljana they had become much worse. In fact, conditions at this psychiatric hospital had already been worse than elsewhere even before the strike. So while things improved everywhere else, here they became even worse than before.
When we criticized these conditions together, Prof. Tavčar overheard us, and we were given pills as punishment.
Because of all this, I called legal assistance by phone, and the lawyer told me that basic rights were being violated there, including both patients’ rights and human rights. It was only a consultation, because the hospital is not held criminally responsible for unlawful actions, unlike in neighboring Austria.
I reported all of this to the chief doctor of the hospital. He was afraid of possible legal consequences and ordered that these problems had to be corrected.
For some time, they appeared to consider these demands, but later everything was dismissed by a young doctor specializing in psychiatry, who believed he could make decisions about these matters because Prof. Tavčar was absent. He refused to listen to anyone.
Eventually, I had had enough of the entire situation and appealed to a higher authority — the director. I wrote to him describing all of this and explaining that I was aware of the political reasons behind the investigation in the hospital.
The hospital’s chief IT expert was a kind man, and he opened this damned door for me on his own initiative. I then asked him for the director’s email address.
The doctors in Department A4 were so offended by this that I ultimately had to leave.
- Reception Department
After that, I was hospitalized again because I experience violence at home and my father claims that I need psychiatric help. In the reception department, the two doctors were Dr. Aleš Logar and another doctor whose name I have forgotten.
I offered Dr. Logar my hand in reconciliation because I wanted us to understand each other, even though he had not always behaved correctly either. Everything was fine until Dr. Curk arrived. During the ward round, she demanded “complete obedience” and refused any dialogue. She expected us to obey everything she said without question.
The atmosphere in the department was very disturbing. The staff behaved in a very inhumane and uncultured manner. They lied in the ambulance, slept during the patients’ rest time, smoked on the terrace for up to three hours, and left us locked in the living room without air conditioning, even though it was summer. We were completely soaked from the heat. The air conditioning was not working, and when they finally repaired and switched it on, water started leaking everywhere.
Then, on my own initiative, I wrote a “daily schedule” on the board suggesting that both staff and patients should spend no more than one hour at a time on the terrace, in the hope of encouraging at least some organization and consideration. The reception department clearly needed planning and structure. However, my “daily schedule” was deleted.
One nurse — I mention her name specifically, Željka — had already broken my leg several years earlier because of her rough behavior. This time, after I cried out because of the pain, she became offended and threatened that she herself would file a complaint against me. She asked me to take food from the food cart myself, despite the fact that my hand was injured and the orthopedic doctor had clearly stated that my hand needed rest. This was already the second time something like this had happened. She would not even allow another patient to take the food for me instead.
Another nurse behaved similarly in the dining room. She told me to get up from a chair so that another lady could sit down. When I explained that the chair was broken, she simply replied, “So what?” The lady had a leg damaged by a stroke and could easily have fallen if she had sat on that chair, but the nurse did not care.
There were many other examples of how patients were treated, but each patient should speak for himself or herself.
Because I protested against this treatment of patients, Dr. Curk prescribed me Haldol as a sedative. I then told them that I would rather voluntarily allow myself to be restrained if that was what they wanted, just so they would leave me in peace and stop threatening me with Haldol.
I would also like to mention one incident that happened before the external supervision by the ministry, which I reported to them as well. One evening, in the closed reception department, I could not sleep and asked for sleeping medication. They refused to call a psychiatrist to prescribe it. I then went to sit quietly in the corridor for a while because I could not sleep, and they restrained me for the entire night simply because I had sat in the corridor for five minutes.
At the end, they also stated that I was able to shower independently, even though I was injured. They had a special shower cabin with a chair designed for patients who needed assistance, but apparently only if the staff wanted to allow its use.
Eventually, I had enough of all of this and requested to be discharged.
Such and similar violations of human rights — not only patients’ rights — as well as various abuses and inhumane treatment of patients, have allegedly been occurring in this hospital since the time when the communists came to power. It is known that such practices already existed in the former Yugoslavia and that they have continued in independent Slovenia. This letter is long because the subject itself is extensive, and this is still not the full story.
The staff at this hospital do not like me very much and claim that I am not nice to them, but they do not want to admit that their own behavior provoked these reactions and continues to do so because they themselves are not friendly or respectful.
Therefore, if you work in this field, please consider this letter as my contribution to the report to Geneva next year regarding the way these people have treated patients. Even animals have legally protected rights, and if it becomes known that an owner mistreats an animal, the owner may be punished and the animal removed for protection. We, however, are human beings who ended up in psychiatry because of various life circumstances, and according to European conventions and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we have the right to decent, humane, respectful, and professional treatment. Such treatment is legally protected, and therefore these actions can be considered unlawful.
Slovenia is increasingly falling into a shameful situation in Europe because of the violence allegedly committed against patients in University Psychiatric Clinic Ljubljana. These are my experiences and my contribution to drawing attention to this situation. Please investigate these reports and take them seriously.
Please do not be persuaded by excuses claiming that no irregularities have occurred, because these issues are constantly discussed in the media and among the public. I believe I can prove that many irregularities have in fact taken place.
With regards,
I. G.