Total abandonment at the Psychiatric Hospital of Placetas, in Villa Clara.

The Psychiatric Hospital of Placetas (Villa Clara), located in El Mamey Alley, is once again in the news due to the deplorable state of its facilities and also because sources familiar with its situation claim that the shortage of medications is causing disruptions among patients with intellectual disabilities, who are constantly fighting and injuring each other.

The grass "is covering the entire Psychiatric Hospital" and since the regular doctors and nurses have emigrated, the patients are left without anyone to take care of them, and sometimes they are seen alone, bathing naked in the hospital courtyard.

Sources that CiberCuba has had access to have provided images of patients who remain hospitalized in the Placetas Psychiatric Hospital, bruised, with broken eyebrows, and bruises on their faces due to the scarcity of the medication that should be provided to them. They are also seen with low body weight, and the sources consulted assure that they have serious feeding problems and that there are cases of older people "who are malnourished".

The Psychiatric Hospital in Placetas is no stranger to headlines. In April 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic, a food theft scandal was uncovered at the hospital, leading to the chief shift supervisor, a cook, and a guard being handed over to the courts. During a surprise inspection, the Municipal Department of Public Health found a cart stocked with large quantities of eggs, chickens, and oil inside the hospital. That night, the patients had only been given rice water to eat.

In May of that year, the trial of those involved in the robbery of the Placetas Psychiatric Hospital was suspended. According to what was said at that time, two of the witnesses were hospitalized in an isolation center after testing positive for covid. However, several days passed without any cases of coronavirus contagion being reported in Villa Clara on the news, so there was much speculation about the real reasons for the postponement of the oral hearing.

Around that time, the administrator of the maternity home in Placetas was also brought before a court for a similar reason, allegedly stealing 18 boxes of chicken and 129 pounds of beef.

The biggest scandal in Psychiatry in Cuba occurred in the year 2010 when 26 patients from the Psychiatric Hospital in Havana (Mazorra) died during a cold wave that struck the capital that year. The responsible parties were sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 15 years.

In 2010, temperatures dropped in Havana to 4 degrees, and many of the deceased were naked, malnourished, in rooms with broken windows, and without blankets. They died of cold.