Yana Paskova - Photojournalist

Europe: A Dark Room

A Bulgarian Psychiatry Ward

Meet the institution's inhabitants, and the challenges to their daily life: lack of vermin control, security personnel, mental stimulation, consistent medical treatment and basic amenities, such as bed sheets and dining utensils. Despite the gaping needs of the institution, the majority of patients return for at least a second and a third visit. Many women say they prefer this environment to that of physical abuse at home; and yet other patients seek shelter from the stigma against mental illness common to the country, which causes alienation from family, friends and employment opportunities.

A patient slams a Bulgarian coin on his forehead and says, “Money controls everything. Money is why I am here. Money is why I will never get out. We have no voice here; only money speaks,” in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 10, 2006.
  
A patient sleeps in a room that can accommodate six occupants of both genders in a psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria, on August 03, 2006. He says the mattress underneath him is at least ten years old, and he complains it is difficult to sleep on it because it is ”infested with fleas.” All of his belongings -- including clothes, shoes, food utensils and bed sheets -- he brought from home because the hospital could not provide any of them.
  
Dirty sheets lay crumpled on a patient's bed in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 23, 2007.
     
  
A nurse prepares an injection for an unstable patient who burst through the doors in the evening hours in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 08, 2006. (Both the hospital and the patients contribute to payment for drugs.)
  
A female patient glances up at an insect-lined sticky strip of fly-catching material as she talks about her family life and about dealing with manic depression in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 23, 2007.
  
A female patient stares at the ceiling while laying in bed for an afternoon nap in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 16, 2007.
     
  
Female patients talk about their family lives and about dealing with manic depression in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 23, 2007.
  
A patient stares at himself in the mirror of the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 30, 2007.
  
A patient spirals down the stairs and toward the door leading out of the ward in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 10, 2006. After sitting on a couch in the hallway for hours, she gets up to seek distractions in the courtyard. She often rubs her face and says, "I have many fears." She says one of them is that the food she is eating is poisoned, so she habitually cleans her face and hands.
     
  
Patients eat in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 16, 2007.
  
A nurse pours soup gathered in a bucket into the plates of patients in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 30, 2007.
  
A patient hangs motionless by the peeling walls against the sunset-outlined window shadow in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 03, 2006.
     
  
A female patient walks down the darkened, empty hallway in the psychiatry ward of a county hospital in Bulgaria on August 20, 2007.