The case had exploded in all its drama in 2020 – with the dissemination of shocking images that spoke for themselves – now it is back in the limelight with a new complaint from the Sardinian guarantor of persons deprived of personal liberty, Irene Head. It is the story of Bruno, a psychiatric patient hospitalized in the Aias facility in Cortoghiana, in the Sulcis-Iglesiente area, suffering from pica, a terrible disease that leads him to ingest anything that comes his way.
For over 16 years, Bruno has been kept all day with his hands tied and is forced to wear a protective mask that looks disturbingly like the one worn by Anthony Hopkins in The silence of the innocent gods to play the infamous Hannibal Lecter. Except that, unlike the most famous cannibal in cinema, Bruno does not represent a danger to others, but only to himself: the helmet serves precisely to prevent him from putting objects that could suffocate him or chemicals with which he would risk his death in his mouth. ‘poisoning.
An “extreme” therapeutic plan that shocked the regional guarantor, who a few days ago inspected the structure and today released yet another shocking photo: “I waited before putting on paper what I saw in the Aias structure in Cordoghiana”, writes Testa . A day to recover from the chilling and gruesome scenario I found myself in front of. I’m not referring to the structure, but to a specific case of a guest inside it, actually already raised for some years, primarily by the president of the National Union of Mental Health Associations, Gisella Trincasbut also the subject of complaints to the prosecutor, of letters to the then Minister of Health, Robert Hopeand of questions in the Sardinian Regional Council”.
Bruno, explains Testa, “for over 16 years has been kept tied up by the hands with a helmet on his head all day long. I’m not a doctor and it’s not up to me to give recipes, perhaps with a simplistic flavor because they are guided by an emotional wave: they are the guarantor of persons deprived of their personal liberty and precisely of persons, of individual cases I have a duty to deal with”.
For this reason, he continues, “I am not resigned, I cannot accept that a sick person is subjected to a treatment that appears closer to the concept of torture than to that of treatment. However, this is not the time for indignation but for the concrete and rapid action of all the institutional actors who can make a contribution to changing this situation. This is a sort of appeal: we must do it for Bruno and for all the other Brunos”.