Psychiatric hospitals 5. Placement of patients in observation rooms/observation and diagnosis sections as an informal coercive measure. Pursuant to Article 3(6)(d) of the Act on the protection of mental health, isolation as a coercive measure consists in placing a person, alone, in a closed and appropriately adapted room. Duration, procedure and place of isolation are clearly specified.234 However, Part VIII paragraph 6(1) of Annex 1 to the Ordinance of the Minister of Health of 26 June 2012 on specific requirements to be met by rooms and facilities of the entity providing medical treatment235 stipulates that observation and diagnosis sections or observation rooms shall be designated in a psychiatric ward. The Act on the protection of mental health does not determine the purpose of observation sections or rooms and in practice they are used as shared isolation rooms, with the duration and procedure governing the patients’ stay in those places not specified and isolation not registered or described as it is the case with coercive measures. In practice, the placement in observation sections or rooms is often used as punishment for violation of the hospital regulations (e.g. for sneaking alcohol into hospital) and the sections and rooms are used to accommodate detained persons and those for whom there is not enough beds in other rooms. The rooms are in fact shared isolation rooms with the placement in them not being subject to any clear criteria and not limited in time and with the personnel not following any rules applicable to coercive measures. The visiting team recommended establishing special (one person) isolation rooms to use coercive measures in the form of restraint or isolation. The representatives of the NPM also recommended replacing the constant and direct observation of patients placed in observation rooms by a member of the personnel sitting on a chair in the door, which violates the patients’ right to intimacy, with the CCTV monitoring or the observation via a one-way mirror. 6.  Total ban on smoking in hospitals. Pursuant to Article 5(1)(1) of the Act of 9 November 1995 on the protection of health against the consequences of using tobacco and tobacco products236, smoking is prohibited, subject to Article 5a, on the premises of entities providing medical treatment and in the rooms of other facilities where health care services are provided. Apart from Article 5a, the said provision does not allow for any exceptions to the ban on using tobacco products. The total ban on smoking is in See: Ordinance of the Minister of Health of 28 June 2012 on using and documenting the coercive measures and the assessment of the justification for their use (Dz. U. of 2012, item 740). 235 Dz. U. of 2012, item 739. 236 Dz. U. of 1996 No 10, item 55, as amended. 234 93