Police detention centres XX  The Federal Ministry of the Interior must ensure that all persons held in detention centres receive an adequate level of curative medical treatment based on state-of-the-art science. XX  The medical and nursing staff of the detention centre must be able to access psychiatric expertise at any time. XX  The existing spatial and staffing concept in the outpatient area of the detention centre should be adapted. Patient documentation in the outpatient area should be maintained in electronic form. XX  The private organisations utilised in the detention centre should be furnished with sufficiently large rooms to provide their services without being disturbed. XX  The detainees at the detention centre should have more varied employment opportunities. XX  Detainees at the detention centre must not be held in security cells longer than necessary, and such detention must be in accordance with the principle of proportionality. XX  Persons in detention pending forced return should only be held in the closed detention station of the detention centre in the cases agreed upon with the NPM. XX  Hunger-strikers should only be held in isolation on the advice of a doctor and only for legitimate security and health reasons. 2.6.6 Unsuitable place for family accommodation Holding asylum seekers in closed detention During a visit to Wels police detention centre in May 2016, the commission encountered eleven asylum seekers (some of whom were minors) in three locked cells. The members of a seven-person family were assigned to two adjacent cells. Another four-person family, which was held in the same cell, had only three beds. The doors to these cells were locked 23 hours per day. There was no active offer of a shower. The children, some of whom were very young, had no toys or other items which were suitable for children to keep them occupied. The NPM took these observations as cause to point out to the Federal Ministry of the Interior that the human dignity of prisoners must be respected and that they should be detained as benignly as possible. The NPM gave special emphasis to the fact that all asylum seekers were not being held in freely accessible, spatially separated areas of the police detention centre. In February 2017, the Federal Ministry of the Interior stated that the police detention centre building would have to be expanded to detain foreign nationals in conformity with the respective legal requirements (see Section 40 (2) of the Procedures Act for the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum). Therefore, to ensure the most benign form of detention possible, the affected persons were assigned to adjacent cells. Moreover, the affected persons could 156