National Preventive Mechanism over use of medication to control mood or suppress difficult behavior; failure to respond to everyday illnesses and acute pain such as tooth-ache, period pains, ear-ache and stomach upsets105. Studies indicate that, as a rule, in the case of persons with disabilities, emphasis is put on their disabilities, while the general problems of their health are ignored. For example, in the case of people with mental retardation, the diagnosis of malignant tumor is usually set extremely late, because care-givers ignore the symptoms. The publication of the Council of Europe also indicates to the wicked trend of involving adults and children with disabilities in health care systems informally (on the basis of a close relationship or good will), despite the fact that, according to the 2008 standard of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture106, access to health care for per- sons held in places of restriction of liberty should be assessed by the extent to which the following formal criteria are met: access to an independent and appropriately qualified doctor; equivalence of care; respect for the patient’s consent and confidentiality; access to preventive healthcare; professional independence of a doctor. Accordingly, medical service that is provided informally and fails to meet the aforementioned criteria cannot be considered as adequite. CASES OF ABUSE, ILL-TREATMENT, AND LABOR EXPLOITATION IN INSTITUTIONS In the period of the monitoring, the Special Preventive Group met and interviewed more than 130 beneficiaries. Many of them talked about violent atmosphere in the institutions that manifested itself in the systematic exercise of physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. The Chiatura Public School No. 12 107 In this institution, the experts of the Special Preventive Group revealed a number of facts of physical and psychological violence inflicted on the beneficiaries by the staff and, especially, the director, as well as cases of inter-beneficiary violence. A 13-year-old child declared: “These teachers beat me; that woman is called N. Teacher L. also beats children. The director beats children with his hands, this way”, and s/he showed us an open palm. “Children are afraid of the director. If you do something wrong, they may not give you food or they may lock you up in a room. L. and N. lock [children] up.” According to a 12-year-old child, “three days ago we beat each other so hard that they could not stop us.” The child blamed staff members T. and N. for inflicting violence on beneficiaries: “T. beats the boys; when they make them angry, T. and N. also beat the girls”. The same child blamed the director of the institution for violence: “If director gets angry, he becomes very dangerous; he slaps [boys] when they make him angry; he also hits the girls.” 105 Noted by organization Autism – Europe 106 Document (98) 12 of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture 107 specialized boarding school for children with disabilities aged from 5 to 18, 27 pupils are enrolled. www.ombudsman.ge NPM Report