Report on the State of Human Rights in Institutions for Persons with Disabilities NUTRITION IN INSTITUTIONS FOR CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES During the monitoring in the Senaki Institution for Children with Disabilities, the experts constantly expressed their concern about the inappropriate nutritional status161 of children. Weight of the several children was extremely small, which, in its turn, was also manifested in the deterioration of the children’s functional status. The Case of B.I. At the time of the monitoring, eight-year-old B.I. weighed 12 kilograms, though, according to the experts’ visual assessment, s/he suffered from considerable insufficiency of protein-enriched food. According to the administration, the child’s weight was quite good when s/he was admitted to the institution. As they later learned from the child’s mother, she squeezed her hands on the child’s nose when she gave him/her food, forcing him/her to take enough food in this way. As the director explained, the staff of the institution, naturally, could not use this method and, for this reason, the child could not or did not receive enough food. The person responsible for the nutrition process (the pediatrician) never suggested feeding him/her with a nasogastric tube, though in conversations with the experts, s/he constantly declared that B.I. received the nutritional norm that was appropriate for his/ her age – with appropriate amount of proteins. The experts of the monitoring group were suspicious of the accuracy of the aforementioned assertion and, with the aim of verifying the facts, attended the full process of feeding B.I. As a result, they found out that after receiving 7080 grams of the 300 grams of the food portion, B.I. was no longer able to receive it and refused to eat. As the nurse explained, the aforementioned happened every time B.I. was given food. Later, the members of the National Preventive Group found a bowl with 300-400 grams of pieces of meat, which lay separately from other products on a table in the locker room for the staff (cooks), instead of being kept in the refrigerator or other room; It was covered with a white cloth. When the experts asked the staff why the aforementioned pieces of meat were in the locker room, they declared that it was waste meat that was useless for consumption (however, on visual inspection, the experts did not assess the pieces of meat as spoiled). When asked why the meat was not in the garbage bin, they were unable to answer. A few hours later, when the experts returned to the aforementioned room, the meat was no longer on the table; The staff said that they had thrown it into a garbage bin. The experts checked the garbage bin, but could not find the pieces of meat there. The aforementioned fact gives rise to doubts about possible causes of the deterioration of the nutritional status of the children, which should become an object of adequate examination and response by the responsible agencies. Ensure the introduction of the principles of full, balanced, and safe nutrition in the institutions for persons with disabilities. ASSESSMENT OF PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT The Issue of Accessibility in Boarding Schools Of the aforementioned institutions, the Tbilisi Public Boarding School No. 200 has been fully rehabilitated, the public boarding schools of Tbilisi No. 202 and 203, Chiatura No. 12, and Kutaisi No. 45 have been rehabilitated partially, 161 Nutritional status – correspondence of food products for metabolic needs and processes ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER OF GEORGIA NPM Report 2012 Public Defender of Georgia addresses the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia with a recommendation to: