shifts in psychiatric wards, or doctors are “borrowed” from amongst
office-based physicians.
In the opinion of the NPM, it is therefore urgently necessary that training
opportunities for specialists be increased, particularly in the field of child
and adolescent psychiatry. This could be reached by applying the
Regulation on Education and Training for Medical Practitioners (ÄrzteAusbildungsordnung) of 2015 with regard to “inadequately filled
speciality fields”. Additionally, the adequate psychiatric care has to be
ensured by way of structural and organisational measures.
Elimination of net beds has been implemented.
Correct deployment of private security companies is targeted.
CPT recommendations from 2015 regarding permanent and direct supervision when
patients are being restrained, beds in hallways and the introduction of central registers in
psychiatric facilities must be implemented.
2.2.2.
System-related problem areas
2.2.2.1.
Sexual harassment vis-à-vis female patients by staff
In March 2015 the NPM learned via an anonymous letter that a
physical therapist working in the psychiatric ward of a hospital has
allegedly continuously committed sexual assaults against three
women since summer 2014. It began rather harmlessly by exceeding
the length of therapy sessions, shifting sessions to the afternoon and
initiating a unilateral relationship that included invitations to dinner.
Later it progressed to verbally intimate behaviour and then to
unwelcomed touching. The anonymous letter stated that women felt
themselves to be helpless. Relevant notifications to the clinic, however,
were apparently not taken seriously and the victims were not
adequately supported.
Behaviour by a physical
therapist that violates
personal boundaries
During a visit to this ward, Commission 3 found that in October 2014
allegations of this kind had been raised by a female patient. The head
physician of the ward addressed these allegations, conducted
meetings and ordered that Mr XY be temporarily removed from
individual care of women in the ward, but that he would continue to
be deployed in group therapy settings. The man denied the
allegations vehemently, but he did not seem capable of reflecting
upon his own behaviour. After the anonymous letter was received,
which was also sent to the hospital in March 2015, the physical
therapist was transferred, because he had not undergone the
recommended supervision and counselling.
In June 2015, there was another allegation of a sexual assault against
a female patient in the same ward, this time by a male nurse. In this
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