Hospitals and psychiatric institutions for protecting the rights of other persons in the psychiatric department, and if it is not disproportionate to the intended purpose. In this sense, Section 34a of the Hospitalisation Act expressly grants hospitalised patients the right to wear private clothes. This right refers to the use of the patients’ own garments, i.e. clothes that are not provided by the medical facility. The CPT standards also emphasise that continuously wearing pyjamas or nightshirts is harmful to strengthening the personality and self-confidence of those who are hospitalised (CPT/Inf/E [2002] 1 – rev. 2006, German, p. 54, paragraph 34). The NPM already pointed out in its most recent report (see NPM Report 2018, p. 59) that continuously wearing institutional clothing is only permissible in justified exceptions. Wearing private clothes is essential in the area of gerontopsychiatry in particular in order to do justice to the normality principle. Continuously wearing institutional clothing as an exception During an examination of the 1st and 2nd Psychiatric Department of Hietzing Hospital – Neurological Rehabilitation Centre Rosenhügel, Commission 4 found patients with symptoms of dementia both in hospital clothing and with a chip band on their wrist. One of the patients had been in the ward for two months and was waiting for a suitable place in a home. The reason given for taking the patient’s own clothes away from her and having her wear a chip band at the time of admission was that she might “flee the ward”. Institutional clothing and chip bands in Hietzing Hospital On request, the commission was informed that taking away a patient’s own clothes is usually combined with the use of a chip band and the fact that the patient’s wardrobe is also locked (without handing over the key). These measures were not sufficiently justified in the patient’s medical histories examined by the commissions. A plausible reason why a chip band alone is not considered as an adequate measure for preventing patients from leaving the ward could not be provided. In a statement of opinion, the Municipal authority of Vienna explained that the chip bands are not personalised. For this reason, institutional clothing has to be additionally used in order to be able to locate the relevant person quicker in case they leave the ward. The NPM is of the opinion that the combination of institutional clothing and chip bands is a disproportionate infringement of the rights of the affected patients. The chip band as a type of monitoring system should be used as an alternative to institutional clothing in order to safeguard the patients’ right to wear their own clothes. The NPM recommends examining the technical possibilities of personalising the chip bands in future. 54