Residential and rehabilitation possibilities for persons with chronic mental disorders must be
expanded as this would prevent some effects requiring hospitalisation.
2.2.4 Insufficient psychiatric beds
The Kufstein District Hospital is responsible for acute psychiatric care of
a region with around 150,000 residents. Only four beds are available
in the closed ward of the hospital.
As a result of this small number of available beds, police bring
patients directly to the Hall Regional Hospital without a psychiatric
examination. Subsequently, it sometimes occurs that staff in Hall
ultimately considers that the patient does not display the requirements
for compulsory hospitalisation. Furthermore, especially on weekends
and at night there are often very long waiting times for a transfer to
the Hall Regional Hospital due to police and emergency services staff
shortages. Transfers can be delayed by three to four hours which
extends the suffering considerably, especially for seriously psychotic
and agitated persons.
Patients must be turned
away
An expansion of the psychiatric ward and of its placement area at the
Kufstein District Hospital is planned in the medium term. However, this
example shows clearly that coordination of available capacity and the
necessary care of patients in psychiatric hospitals must be a priori
carefully implemented, taking the local conditions into consideration.
Forward-looking and
flexible planning
necessary
Availability of psychiatric care must be planned in a forward-looking way and flexibly
adjusted to the regional conditions.
2.2.5 Physical restraint lasting several days
During a visit at the psychiatric ward of the Regional Clinic in
Neunkirchen, Commission 6 dealt in depth with the case of a patient
who had been physically restrained for several days.
After several attempts to commit suicide and a previous stay at the
Regional Clinic in Baden, the patient was admitted as an inpatient.
From the time directly following his admission on Friday afternoon until
his release the following Monday morning, his freedom was
constantly restricted by way of multi-point restraints. Physical restraint
for such a lengthy period of time is an extreme measure and a
particularly massive intrusion into human dignity and fundamental
personal rights. For example, the CPT has viewed mechanical
restraints persisting over several days as abuse from a human rights
50
Physical restraint lasting
several days violates
human rights
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