BOSNIA: PAZARIC MENTAL INSTITUTION DESPERATELY IN NEED OF HELP

(18 Mar 1996) Serbo-Croat/Nat

Now that Bosnia's civil war has reached a fragile peace, those who can, are trying to rebuild their lives.

But in a country barely able to support even the fit and well, the future looks desperate for more than 300 patients in a Sarajevo mental hospital.

For more than 43 months of war, the mental institution in the Sarajevo suburb of Pazaric has had to cope with almost no help from the outside world.

In 1992 and 1993 almost a hundred patients died because food and medicine were not available.

The Red Cross is now providing some basic support and although the patients are surviving, it's a bleak existence.

Danilo Sladoje, a Serb, has risked his own life to remain in charge of the home throughout the war, despite being on Bosnian Government territory.

After seeing his hospital survive through such hardship he is determined that his patients must now have a better quality of life.

Danilo says the institute is desperately in need of help. Financial, practical, medical and professional assistance on all levels is being sought.

SOUNDBITE: (Serbo-Croat)
" We need money to solve the problems inside the hospital and to secure food and medications for patients".
SUPER CAPTION: Danilo Sladoje, Manager of Pazaric mental institution

Throughout the war they grew their own food. The patients cooked and cleaned for themselves and buried their own dead.

There are 357 patients here, 95% of them are seriously handicapped both physically and mentally, many of them young children.

The home has five trained staff, including the director, who has to supervise the patients 24 hours a day.

These people may not have fought in the civil war but their faces show the sacrifices they have made to see peace again.

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