Situation of deprivation of liberty
the Departments of Health and of Family and Social Affairs of Madrid
Autonomous Community, the Department of Family and Equal Opportunities of the Government of Castile and Leon and the Provincel
Deputation of Ávila. In addition, authorities such as the Madrid Agency
for Adult Care (Agencia Madrileña de Tutela de Adultos), the Health
Service of Castile-La Mancha, the Health Service of Galicia and insurance companies pay for individual places. The rest of the places are
privately paid for by residents or their families. At the time of the visit,
the centre had 297 places, of which 262 were occupied.
197. At the visits, deficiencies were observed as to the lack of court
authorisation for the admission of persons without capacity to give
their free consent to it, both incapacitated by the court and otherwise.
At the Healthcare Centre “El Pinar” (Teruel), in the light of the documentation, the conclusion was drawn that the IASS does not require
express court authorisation for the admission of persons in such situation, on considering that it is necessary only for admission into mental
health centres. In the opinion of this Institution, the relevant factor,
from the point of view of legal safeguards, is the capacity of a person
to freely give his consent to his admission, with the consequent loss of
liberty or restriction he may sustain to his rights, and not the grounds
for the measure or the type of centre to which he is admitted. Accordingly, in such cases, the family relatives or tutors should request
court authorisation for the involuntary admission pursuant to article
763 of the Civil Procedure Law and, simultaneously, such authorisation
should be demanded as a requirement for admission, along the lines
of the criterion contemplated in paragraph 173 of Annual Report 2012.
The Department of Health, Social Welfare and Family of the General
Deputation of Aragon reported that this question was being considered
and that it had got in touch with the Public Prosecutor’s Office to coordinate actions.
Deficiencies in the lack of
court authorisation for nonvoluntary admission
At the Residential Centre “Santa Teresa de Arévalo”, in turn, various
situations were observed: persons who had been voluntarily admitted, admissions at origin voluntary that later became involuntary, involuntary admissions with prior court authorisation (in the case both
of incapacitated and non-incapacitated persons), urgent involuntary
admissions with subsequent court ratification and admissions ordered
as a precautionary measure in the incapacitation proceeding with a
subsequent court order for ratification of the admission. When reviewing the dossiers, cases were detected of former patients that might
not have capacity to give their free consent to continuing in the centre, and in respect of which no court authorisation had been given for
them to remain there, so that such situations should be reviewed. The
Department of Family and Equal Opportunities of the Government of
Castile and Leon accepted the criterion of this Institution and, accordingly, requested the entity owner of the centre to regularise the cases
mentioned.
198. With regard to the regular control of involuntary admissions, it
was observed that, in many cases, the medical reports sent on a sixmonthly basis by the Residential Centre “Santa Teresa de Arévalo” to
Regular control of nonvoluntary admissions
145
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