Report on the Performance of Activities of the National Preventive Mechanism for 2016
documents, a person de facto does not exist and it is impossible for him or her to realize
fundamental human rights, guaranteed by numerous international documents, the
Constitution and other regulations.
The mere fact that a person who suffers from mental disorders refuses to treat physical disease,
must not be a reason for involuntary hospitalization or for imposing any medical procedures
without his or her consent. Exception are situations where due to a mental disease, a person is
not able to reach an informed decision on medical procedure in connection with treatment of
a life-threatening physical disease. If preconditions referred to in the Act on Protection of
Persons with Mental Disorders have been fulfilled, or if the
doctor has established that the state of physical disease has
The mere fact that a person
who suffers from mental
reached the status of particular emergency, seriously and
directly threatening the life or health of the patient, the patient
disorders refuses to treat
may be subject to a medical procedure without his or her
physical disease, must not
be a reason for involuntary
consent, and this only as long as his or her life or health are
threatened. Namely, given that from the Act on Protection of
hospitalization or for
imposing any medical
Persons with Mental Disorders, it does not arise that this
pertains only to psychiatric treatment, but to all medical
procedures without his or
procedures, depriving the person of legal capacity or assigning
her consent.
him or her a special guardian is something that should not be
insisted upon. Since in this specific case, after one month of involuntary hospitalization and
intensive psychiatric treatment, doctors estimated that the person was capable of giving
consent to continue being treated on psychiatric ward, this meant that the person could also
decide upon treating physical disease. Therefore, since that moment, the person had the right
to refuse or accept treatment of physical disease, just like all other patients pursuant to the Act
on Protection of Persons with Mental Disorders.
Problems in connection with the procedure of termination of involuntary hospitalization have
also been detected. For example, in one investigative procedure, we established that as many
as 14 days elapsed between the date on which Municipal Criminal Court reached a Decision
authorizing renewal of the procedure and termination of involuntary hospitalization, and the
date on which the person was actually released from the hospital. To put it differently, after
becoming final, the Decision was forwarded to the Municipal Court, which having conducted a
non-contentious procedure, decided upon termination of involuntary hospitalization. This type
of conduct, which is a consequence of insufficiently precise legal regulations, represents a
problem, given that liberty and rights of people with mental disorders are thus unnecessarily
being breached.
In previous reports, we pointed to unacceptable conditions of some wards within psychiatric
institutions. It is encouraging that in late 2017, patients are planning to be relocated into the
new building of the Department for Forensic Psychiatry of the University Psychiatric Hospital
Vrapče. However, conditions at the Department of Geropsychiatry are still not satisfactory,
despite the fact that its capacity has been improved following reduction of bed numbers by
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