Finally, all long-stay premises should be able to cater for persons with restricted mobility in a dignified manner. Rooms and cells intended for them need to make provision not only for the necessary facilities but also for the movement of a wheelchair between the room and the shower room, which needs to be possible without for all that depriving the latter of a door210. 1.1.2 Layouts that respect the occupant’s state of health For the last twenty years, the norms of penal institutions have provided for more comfortable conditions of accommodation, in particular by the addition of bathrooms to cells. Similarly, newly constructed health institutions bear witness to a real concern to improve conditions of accommodation for hospitalised persons. Nevertheless, the conditions of accommodation of patients and prisoners are far from always protecting their physical well-being from the consequences of confinement in the oldest institutions, which have not been renovated, as well as in the most recent institutions, which do not always take the effects of the length of confinement into account. Adequate Light in Places of Accommodation The poor quality of light in cells and rooms leads to pathologies of eyesight going beyond the effects of age alone, in particular for prisoners serving long sentences. Prisoners cannot control the light in their cells, which is often affected by the orientation of the latter: too dark in cells facing north and too light in cells facing south. Prisoners offset this problem by making makeshift curtains (in principle prohibited in prison), at their own expense, with sheets or towels. If the cell faces north and the window is obstructed by gratings and bars, the daylight is filtered through the latter and is insufficient to enable reading, above all if its window is placed high up on the wall, which is often the case in old institutions. In one remand prison in the East of France, the inspectors noted that in the cells, the bottom of the window – the latter being 0.40 m high and 0.90 m wide – was situated 2.30 m above the floor, with the handle of the window catch 2.50 m above the floor. In order to open the window, the occupant had to climb up on a chair. The light provided by the window was insufficient for reading, above all for persons placed in the bottom and middle bunk-beds. When the occupants do not remain in the half-light, sleeping or watching television, the electric light is switched on all day long. Moreover, it was noted that one detention centre for illegal immigrants, previously destroyed by fire, had been rebuilt at basement level, necessitating artificial lighting at all times. The fact remains that in prisons the latter rarely suffices for the provision of satisfactory lighting. The wall lights installed in the cells are placed high up, often very high, on one of the walls or on the ceiling. They are frequently covered with an opaque plastic globe and equipped with a light-bulb of insufficient power to provide adequate lighting, in particular for reading. Prisoners resort to buying additional lamps, and extension leads and adaptors in order to be able the plug them in, cells sometimes only being equipped with a single electrical socket. Moreover, distance vision is limited to the largest dimension of the cell, rarely more than 4 m. The gratings on the windows make it impossible to offset this lack of distance. In one prison, the cell intended for persons with restricted mobility is located on the ground floor and 210 Cf. Annual Report for 2012, Section 5: "Deprivation of Liberty and Access to Health Care” 3. Daily Life in Prison for the elderly and persons suffering from disabling pathologies (pp. 236-241). 131