The Almaty Regional Court ordered a psychiatric institution to pay 2 million tenge in moral damages to a local resident named Saniya, who was illegally registered as mentally ill and forcibly detained in a ward for 34 days.
According to the Telegram channel «Halyqstan», the conflict began in January 2023. It emerged that the woman has diabetes and is entitled to free insulin, but the medication was issued irregularly. After complaints, Saniya was suddenly declared mentally ill and hospitalised in a psychiatric hospital.
"None of the staff at this hospital checked or assessed her mental state. She was not even informed about the meeting of the VKK (medical advisory commission, which by law places patients under dynamic observation), nor was she notified about being placed on the register", says Aliya Abdinova, a lawyer from the public foundation «Qorǵau HR».
Meanwhile, Saniya's 8-year-old son, who was left alone, was placed by the authorities in a centre for children in difficult life situations. The boy spent 10 months there — from February to November 2023.
It is reported that getting the child back proved difficult: the guardianship authorities cited a petition to declare the woman legally incapacitated.
Lawyers helped Saniya challenge her placement on the psychiatric register, regain custody of her child, and restore her status as a legally capable person. After this, the victim filed a lawsuit for compensation for moral harm.
"After the hospital, I felt severe side effects on my health. My joints started to hurt. On top of that, they took my child away for 10 months. He came back with scratches and bruises. We called the police, but the director of the institution said the child had been running and falling on his own. My son denied being beaten, but he was terrified. He was under extreme stress, couldn't sleep at night, and said bad words he had learned at that institution", Saniya recounted.
Initially, the district court reduced the compensation amount to 200 thousand tenge, but the appellate court ruled to recover the full amount from the medical institution — 2 million tenge.