Inside the 'world's most dangerous' hospital

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.

Walking into one of the wards is like entering a hell on Earth. We find more patients in rags sitting on the floor and in plastic chairs, rocking themselves for comfort. There appears to be no form of stimulation in the dark, sparse ward.

The US campaign group Disability Rights International (DRI) spent three years collecting evidence on Federico Mora. In a report published in 2012, the group described the hospital as "the most dangerous facility our investigators have witnessed anywhere in the Americas".

It said "any person with or without a disability detained in this hospital faces immediate risk to his or her life, health and personal integrity, as well as risk of inhuman and degrading treatment or torture".

We don't have the medication we need to treat patients. It is dirty, there are rats and cockroaches," admits one, her hands shaking with nerves.

"It's not just dangerous for the patients but for us too," says a male care worker, holding the hands of his colleagues. "We have complained but no-one listens. Working at the hospital is terrifying."

"Being a developing country with a poor economy is not an excuse for torture, sexual abuse and no dignified care," he says.

"It is total dehumanisation. These people are not treated as human beings. They have been written off. They are being locked up for the crime of having a disability."