Leros can be everywhere

Theofanis Kleopas - Psychiatrist - S.S.P. & M.H.

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Leros can be everywhere

• Leros: a beautiful Greek island of the Dodecanese Complex, in the Southern Aegean Sea.

• 171 nautical miles from Piraeus

• Area: 53 square miles

• Inhabitants: 8.207


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Brief historical reviewColony for Psychopaths was founded in

1957 in Leros for multiple reasons:• It served local labour interests and

political favouritisms• It provided massive overnight

decongestion of long stay institutions (e.g. Athens)

• It secured the “non-acknowledgement” of the inner social beliefs, regarding mental illness


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• The reception from the locals was enthusiastic!!

• The island had only one psychiatrist and practically undertrained staff

• Thus, conditions moved from “sanctuary/asylum” to “living hell/asylum”

• In 1964, the current government changed the name of the Colony to “Leros Psychiatric Hospital”, having at that time 2683 beds!


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Minor Rehabilitation Efforts-Political Developments

• Assembly of the “Leros Team” (1981)• Greece joins EC (1981)• National Health System Law 1397/83 becomes

active (1983)• Regulation 815/84 becomes (controversially)

active (1984). Regulation objectives were to deal with human right abuses on Leros and support the creation of regional mental health services


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In 1989 the “Observer” and Channel 4 exposed the situation

on Leros to the world


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Dimensions of the Leros Problem

• Political and bureaucratic Acute embarrassment at exposure of the

conditions on Leros to the worldLabyrinthine and highly politicized

bureaucracy Initial resentment of inspection and

attempts to cover up


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• EconomicOne third of the population of Leros

worked in the hospitalProbably highest per capita income of

any island in Greece, due to that reasonCreation of alternative economy in order

to resolve the high hospital labour dependency


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• PsychiatricReally old hospital establishments

(Italian navy barracks of World War II)

Not sufficient medical supervision and inadequate staff training


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Multinational Interventions• Special Rehabilitation Programme (Leros I and

II)• Several national intervention teams from Oct

1990 to May 1991 (Ireland, Germany, UK, Italy and the Netherlands)

• Objectives:KnowledgeCooperationStaminaKnow-how inspiration


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Local Interventions• Thessaloniki team (e.g. K. Bairaktaris, V.

Lazaridis, G. Kaprinis et al.)

• Aris Liakos et al.

• Athens team (e.g. N. Ploumbidis, C. Panetas, S. Stylianidis et al.)

• Panagiotis Sakellaropoulos et al.

• Dozens of mental health professionals (volunteers)


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Giannis Loukas

Theodoros Megalooikonomou


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Epilogue


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“It takes a whole village to grow up a child” (traditional African saying)

“He who finds a friend finds a treasure”“Attend towards the place you wanna go,

or you will go towards the place you are attending to” (traditional Greek saying)


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Thank you for your attention


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Leros can be everywhere

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