Budapest: madness on the streets -- literally

Last year, as one of the first steps in a sweeping health reform, OPNI (National Institue of Psychiatry and Neurology) was closed down in Budapest. According to one the biggest TV channels in Hungary, there are about 5-600 schizophrenic people now without regular medical control. As these people are not aware of their illness, they did not seek out new places. It's quite to difficult to find them as a lot of them are homeless. All this came to light after a 10% drop in medicine for this illness last year.

 Rumours are abound why OPNI was closed down. First of all, just the land worths about 122 million EUR. Second, and this was only raised by some opposition politicans (which in Hungary could easily mean it's totally unfounded) -- the new head of the Department of Health has strong ties to the Church of Scientology -- and we all know that they are quite hostile to psychiatry.