Report of the Human Rights Defender on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2013 In one of the visited stations199, the coercive measure in the form of restraining the patient with straps was used in the general room where other patient could be accommodated with respect to whom such measures were not used, although the station had a separate isolation room. In the opinion of the representatives of the NPM, such practice should be abandoned, since the immobilised person may be exposed to aggression of the other patient which makes his situation even more uncomfortable. 5.3.3. Right of access to information During their visits, the representatives of the NPM analyse how the patients of the visited establishments can exercise their right of access to information. It is beyond any doubt that the access to information allows patients of soberingup stations to exercise their rights and react when those rights are violated. The employees of the Mechanism also emphasize that, pursuant to the UN General Assembly Resolution of 9 December 1988 (Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under any Form of Detention or Imprisonment), any person shall, at the moment of arrest and at the commencement of detention or imprisonment, or promptly thereafter, be provided by the authority responsible for his arrest, detention or imprisonment, respectively, with information on and an explanation of his rights and how to avail himself of such rights (Principle 13). Informing the patients of sobering-up stations about their right to complain to the district court competent for the place where the station is located, pursuant to Article 40(6) of the Act on upbringing in sobriety200, is of particular importance from the point of view of their right of access to information. Failure to inform the patients of a sobering-up station about the right to complain is each time a cause for alarm for the representatives of the NPM who issue a recommendation to place the relevant information in a place available to all201. 5.3.4. Right to health care Medical examination in conditions that do not ensure intimacy is an irregularity found during the visits to sobering-up stations which particularly infringes the rights of patients and also breaches the right to medical confidentiality. There are cases when medical examination takes place in the building’s hall with Sobering-up Station in Koszalin. Before the amendment (Act of 3 January 2013 amending the Act on upbringing in sobriety and counteracting alcoholism), the matter was regulated in Article 40(3a). 201 Sobering-up Station in Koszalin, Sobering-up Station in Bytom. 199 200 63