3.1.2 NATIONAL FRAMEWORK CONCERNING DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY tient care, much of the outpatient functions of MHC were taken over by private psychiatric offices, which took their patient records with them. In the last 10 years, the function of the MHC has been shifted in the direction of mainly inpatient services due to the specifics of financing the activity. In this way, the main function of the MHC for follow-up and outpatient care of the persons with psychosocial disabilities is not adequately fulfilled.160 The number of psychiatrists in Bulgaria is about 500, very unevenly distributed. A serious imbalance between individual professionals is also at stake - psychiatrists, psychotherapists, social workers, psychologists, nurses, orderlies and other personnel. In practice, the system is dominated by doctors and the remaining staff is insufficient to form multidisciplinary teams. There is hardly any psychiatric treatment facility in the country that covers the requirements of the medical standard “Psychiatry” in terms of staff, and this makes it pointless to give different levels of competence.161 After discharge from the psychiatric hospital, the patient has no regulation of referral for follow-up, supportive therapy and any psychosocial interventions with a view to his/her reintegration into the community.162 These activities are undertaken haphazardly depending on the condition and coverage of that patient by a relevant outpatient service or at the initiative of relatives.163 A significant problem is the lack of continuity of care after completion of inpatient treatment and the lack of a unified information system for the psychiatric patients being treated. There are local information databases for patients transferred to the respective SPH or MHC, without these data being used by other medical institutions. In cases where emergency patients do not have accompanying documentation and their identity is unknown, there is no possibility to check this by reference in an information system, which complicates the diagnostic-treatment process.164 There is no system for evaluating the effectiveness of the activities carried out during the treatment. In practice, the persons who had committed the most severe crimes are placed in the State Psychiatric Hospital in Lovech. According to the interviewees in this research mental health centres keep these patients up to 20-30 days and remove them to state psychiatric hospitals because of funding reasons as usually these patients stay on compulsory treatment for years. Their relatives and next of kins either do not wish or are not able to take care of them (or are dead) and hope to get rid of them by placement in psychiatric hospital. The courts considering the lack of treatment and resocialisation chances in the community for the disabled person on one hand and the public interest for protection on the other hand often continue compulso- Bulgaria, Council of Ministers, National Strategy for Mental Health of the Citizens of Republic of Bulgaria 2021 – 2030, adopted on 23 April 2021, p.10. 161 Bulgaria, Council of Ministers, National Strategy for Mental Health of the Citizens of Republic of Bulgaria 2021 – 2030, adopted on 23 April 2021, p.11. 162 Bulgaria, Council of Ministers, National Strategy for Mental Health of the Citizens of Republic of Bulgaria 2021 – 2030, adopted on 23 April 2021, p.13. 163 Bulgaria, Council of Ministers, National Strategy for Mental Health of the Citizens of Republic of Bulgaria 2021 – 2030, adopted on 23 April 2021, p.13. 164 Bulgaria, Council of Ministers, National Strategy for Mental Health of the Citizens of Republic of Bulgaria 2021 – 2030, adopted on 23 April 2021, p.13. 160 Bulgarian Helsinki Committee 45