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9. Persons deprived of their liberty at the places of detention visited by the NPM
88 residents of the Institution were placed under guardianship, and the
guardianship procedure of another 21 residents was in progress. Out of
the 88 residents under guardianship, 46 were under guardianship invoking fully limited legal capacity, and 42 were under guardianship invoking
partially limited legal capacity. In 26 cases, relatives acted as guardians,
whereas in the remaining 16 cases, the task was carried out by a professional guardian. One professional guardian carried out guardianship-related
tasks for several persons under guardianship. Supporters with no effect on
legal capacity had not been assigned to any of the residents. I suggested
that upon requesting guardianship procedures, the head of the Institution
take into consideration that in those cases where no restriction on the legal
capacity to act is necessary, it is possible to assign a supporter.
According to the document entitled “Rules of Moving into a Residential
Room”, residents may request to be placed in one- or two-bed rooms, residential homes or apartments, and they may also name the person with whom
they would like to share their room. As opposed to that, several residents complained that they were not allowed to choose their own room-mates. Some residents were on extremely bad, overtly hostile terms with their room-mates. Another resident was devastated by the fact that the room-mate she loved dearly
would move out two days later, and she would be left alone. I asked the head of
the Institution to take into consideration, when assigning residents to specific
rooms, their wishes concerning the person whom they would like to live with,
and inform them in advance about changes in the distribution of the rooms.
In 2017, 55 residents passed away, of whom the youngest was 59 years old
whereas the oldest was 97. In most cases, the cause of death was respiratory
failure, cardiovascular failure, pneumonia or sepsis. Residents in terminal
stage were moved to the two medical rooms on the ground floor. Several
extraordinary deaths had taken place within the Institution. In 2015 one
of the residents hanged himself/herself in the garden of the Institution. This
resident had been examined by a physician the week prior to the suicide for
the purposes of placing him/her under guardianship. In the same year, another resident jumped out from the first floor in the lobby of the Institution.
Based on the accounts of the residents, one of the residents jumped out of
the window after he/she had been beaten by his/her room-mates with a
stick. In 2016, one of the residents, who was being treated at the otolaryngological ward of the Hospital of Szentes due to physical abuse suffered at
the Institution, committed suicide by throwing himself/herself out of the
window. The residents received assistance in coping with their loss, anxiety and fear provoked by these deaths from the mental health personnel.
I called the attention of the head of the Institution to the fact that the work
of the mental health professionals could be facilitated by group sessions
and individual conversations held for the residents by a psychologist.
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