The Public Defender’s Office of Georgia has prepared a report on the monitoring conducted in nursing homes, which reflects the results of the monitoring conducted in the long-term care facilities for older persons in Tbilisi and Eastern Georgia - Kakheti, Shida Kartli and Rustavi in ​​June 2022.

In order to assess the rights situation and conditions of older persons in care facilities, employees of the Public Defender’s Office of Georgia, together with the experts of the Special Preventive Group, visited 4 day-care facilities for older persons: 1. Rustavi “St. Akaki Morchili Nursing Home” NNLE, 2. Community organization “Home Without Borders” NNLE located in the village of Khurvaleti, Gori municipality, 3. Nursing Home “Satnoebis Gza” NNLE located in Tbilisi and 4. Tsnori Nursing Home “Savane Betheli” in Sighnaghi municipality. At the time of the monitoring, there were 78 older people placed in all four institutions.

The monitoring revealed a number of systemic problems, which gives us the basis to conclude that most of the inspected day-care nursing homes do not meet or do not properly meet the requirements defined by international and national regulations, including the approved minimum standards. Heads of some institutions, speaking to the members of the monitoring group, stated that they did not know and had not heard about the service standards for older persons.

As a result of the monitoring, among other problems, the following violations were identified:

• Some of the institutions are not well organized, do not have adequate infrastructure and beneficiaries are in severe unsanitary conditions;
• Older persons are often in discriminatory and degrading situation;
• Health care of older persons is neglected;
• Food standards are violated;
• Most of the beneficiaries are not informed of their rights;
• The psychiatric vulnerability of the beneficiaries is not taken into account and no adequate attention is paid to their mental health;
• The institutions have not developed internal standards for the management of psychiatric cases;
• Protection from violence and discrimination is not ensured in accordance with the requirements of state standards;
• Care for the beneficiaries is mainly limited to meeting their hygienic and physiological needs;
• The ratio between beneficiaries and caregivers is also violated; caregivers do not have the opportunity for professional development.

The report describes in detail the key findings of the monitoring and offers relevant recommendations.