Desperate plight of Russia's mentally ill

Even Russia seems to be reformimg their mental health institutions, as seen in this BBC report

In Russia's psychiatric institutions known as "internats", there is not much in the way of facilities or medical care, and as Oleg Boldyrev has discovered, most of the inmates will never be able to leave. On the edge of Pervouralsk, a small town in the Urals, past the brick-making plant, the streets get smaller, the tarmac turns to dirt and the wooden houses give way to tall spruce trees.

Then, all of a sudden, you are confronted by a long grey building, four storeys high. It is an "internat", a final destination for thousands of people who are mentally ill, have learning difficulties or who simply have nowhere else to go. Once you are here, it is almost invariably forever.

Internats are supposed to offer psycho-neurological treatment, but that is not really the case. They do not come under a medical authority and so are chronically short of nurses and doctors. There is little treatment on offer.

Reform is coming. The article mentions one bright spot, but it is still just a drop in the bucket.