Decentralising psychiatric care from a hospital based system to community based mental health care.

Cërrik is one of the new community based mental health services that the Albanian Ministry of Health is establishing within the framework of the National Mental Health Reform. The Reform aims at decentralising psychiatric care from a hospital based system into a community based mental health care, delivered by multi-disciplinary teams as close to home as possible.

The home in Cërrik is part of the WHO supported action of deinstitutionalising Elbasan, the largest psychiatric hospital in Albania. The establishment of the home was made possible through financial grants that WHO received from the Swedish and the Irish governments.

Cërrik is the first home in Albania accommodating, in shared spaces, men and women, former institutionalised patients of the psychiatric hospital. Less than a year since its opening in March 2008, four out of 12 patients went back to their families.
Their stories can be seen in this compelling 15 minute video programme...

Produced by Turner Associates on behalf of the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe