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The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of healthcare offered by a Greek Public Psychiatric Clinic. Special attention is paid to the degree to which the Clinic promotes human rights, social inclusion, and autonomy.

The paper opted for an exploratory study using the open-ended approach of grounded theory, including 21 depth interviews with patients, staff members and patients’ relatives, documentation review and observation by an independent assessment team consisting of the author, a sociologist with mental disabilities, and a psychologist using the World Health Organization QualityRights tool kit which uses the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as its frame. The data complemented by a group discussion with employees in another Clinic of the same hospital.

The paper provides empirical insights about how the steps taken by the Psychiatric Clinic to address several of the themes drawn from the CRPD require either improvement or initiation to comply fully with the convention's themes, and how this compares unfavorably with the Urology Clinic.

Sample size and restriction of the data to only one mental health facility limit the generalizibility of the results. Staff who reported professional burnout and cuts in wages may have been be susceptible to recall bias due to current negative mood. Respondent patients may also have failed to disclose their true experiences due to fear of punishment.

The paper uses a new methodology and instrument to assess current practice in mental health facilities in relation to international human rights standards emanating from the CRPD as well as the degree of parity between mental health and general health services.