Report of the HRD on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2011 d) Right to health care In the visited establishments residents were provided with proper level of medical care. Physicians and nurses were employed in both establishments. Specialist consultations were conducted outside the premises, and were financed from the National Health Fund. Residents were provided with constant psychiatric and psychological care and with rehabilitation services. The inspection of physician’s room did not reveal any irregularities. It was noted that these are well equipped and ensure a proper level of intimacy necessary when performing a medical examination or some other treatment. e) Right to complain As far as this area is concerned, the visiting team reported that almost nothing has changed since the 2010 visit. Even though in both of the visited Centres books of complaints were kept, the practice to make entries in them was abandoned in 2007 (Gołuszyce) and in 2009 (Zakrzew). The alleged reason for doing so was the insignificance of entries and the prompt reaction to complaints. In the opinion of the NPM, reintroducing the good practice of making entries in the book should be viewed as justified, as providing a possibility to objectively assess their reviewing and handling. It should also be noted that the Ordinance of the Minister of Labour and Social Policy of 19 October 2005 on social care centres225 stipulates in § 5(1) that establishments are required to provide assisting services, which consist in efficient lodging of complaints and requests by the residents. The director of the SCC in Zakrzew announced that he talked with the residents about the issue and that he began to draft a procedure for reviewing and accepting complaints and requests. The residents of the Centre in Zakrzew were reminded about the possibility to lodge complaints and requets pursuant to applicable instructions. Also, a meeting was organised during which the director reminded staff members responsible for registering complaints and requests about the residents’ Regulations and about applicable internal procedures. The National Preventive Mechanism recommended to: • Introduce a practice of registering each complaint and request submitted by the SCC’s residents in the book of complaints. f) Admitting residents without their consent Pursuant to Article 39 in conjunction with Article 38 of the Act of 19 August 1994 on the protection of mental health226, if a person is unable to provide for his/her basic needs due to a mental illness or mental retardation, and such person cannot rely on help of others  Dz.U. of 2005 No 217, item 1837.  Dz. U. of 2011, No 231, item 1375, as amended. 225 226 126