Health Ministry dismisses allegations of illegal drug tests at Psychiatry Hospital

Patients at the National Psychiatry Hospital have participated in an authorized clinical study that had an exclusively scientific purpose, and were not subjected to any illegal drug tests, the Ministry of Health said in a statement in response to allegations made earlier by an NGO. The Ministry of Health said that three clinical studies were conducted in agreement with the good practice rules and the national legislation and with the observance of all procedures, with authorizations obtained from the Medicines Agency and the National Ethics Committee for Clinical Research of Treatments. The Ministry said that no patients with mental incompetency participated in the study. The research was conducted only after informing the eligible patients on its objectives, methods used, benefits and risks involved, and with their written consent. The medicines used were administrated as additives to the primary treatment, and had a beneficial impact on the metal state of those patients, the Ministry assured. Further, the Ministry noted that such clinical studies are done everywhere around the world and their conducting in Moldova can have a positive impact on the development of modern methods of treatment in the field. It was also said in the statement that the Ministry will ask relevant law enforcement agencies to investigate the unjust allegations made by the NGO in question. The NGO Moldova Mea said on Tuesday that illegal drug tests were conducted for five months on 220 patients of the National Psychiatry Hospital. The NGO claimed that the tests were commissioned by a Romanian company which paid the hospital $250 for each patient, plus $70 fees for the nurses who were instructed to observe the effects of the administrated drugs.