Inside the 'world's most dangerous' hospital

The BBC recently ran a disturbing investigation into what it called Inside the 'world's most dangerous' hospital. According to the BBC, the Federico Mora Hospital hosts 340 patients, including 50 violent and mentally ill criminals.

A hospital in Guatemala has been described by campaigners as the world's most abusive and dangerous mental health institution. Former patients say they were raped while sedated, and the director himself admits - while being filmed undercover by the BBC - that patients are still being sexually abused.

Wherever I look I see motionless bodies lying on the crumbling concrete floor of a barren courtyard in the burning sun. The patients appear to have been heavily sedated. Their heads have been shaved and most are dressed in rags with nothing on their feet.

Others are totally naked, exposing their dirty skin covered in their own faeces and urine. They look more like concentration camp prisoners than patients.

For the last few years, Disability Rights International (DRI) has been working to bring a legal case against the Guatemalan government to have the hospital closed down. I'm not sure if that is the solution but I assume that they have concluded that the hospital is beyond saving.

In some ways, the hospital is in such dire conditions because the government lacks the financial resources to properly support its operations. That seems to be the case for most public hospitals in the country.

However, it is also clear that the population that is served at the hospital by successive administrations, not just Otto Perez Molina, is not a priority.