Report on the Performance of the Activities of the National Preventive Mechanism for 2019 As not all the sanitary facilities in the Osijek PU and the Rab PH have been segregated by sex, all the patients must perform their personal hygiene tasks in the same bathrooms. A problem common to all psychiatric institutions is the inadequate protection of the patients' right to spend time outdoors, especially those who have physical, not only mental, disorders, and are thus less mobile. For this reason, terraces and ground-level yards urgently have to be put in order, by installing overhead covering and the necessary amenities to allow even the most severely ill patients to spend time in fresh air. In addition, we also pointed out the need to reduce overcrowding, especially in one of the Osijek PU departments, where four women live in a small room, and whose privacy is thus fully compromised, while such conditions can also foster a negative atmosphere in their therapies. The 2008 Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment makes it clear that poor conditions in psychiatric institutions and care homes for persons with disabilities represent degrading treatment under article 3 of the ECHR. This is also confirmed by ECtHR case-law, in the Romanov v Russia case (2005), where the Court confirmed that the applicant was held in a secure unit of a psychiatric institution for one year, three months and 13 days, some four and a half months of which were spent in a small, overcrowded room. In the judicial proceedings it was established A problem common to all psychiatric institutions is the inadequate protection of the patients' right to spend time outdoors, especially those who have physical, not only mental, disorders, and are thus less mobile. that prolonged confinement in a secure-type unit combined with poor accommodation conditions represented degrading treatment. Therefore, although the existence of an intention to do so was not established, the Court found that the standards of accommodation have demeaned the applicant's human dignity and caused him to feel humiliation and degradation. From interviews and focus groups with persons with mental disorders conducted during our visits, as well as from complaints we received, we observed that patients, even those who have been committed voluntarily, are not always adequately informed as to why they are held there and what is going to happen to them. Some have indicated that while they did formally agree to hospitalisation, they gave their consent in fear of forced detention or placement, that is, in fear of a court order. They are frequently unacquainted with their treatment plans, do not know which therapies they are on, they ask whether they can go home or out for a walk and do not know why they are denied this, or wonder why they are in a secure unit even though they have been voluntarily committed. Due to the importance of informed consent, which is a legal obligation, but also a chance to create trust and partnership in treatment, we organised a roundtable with a number of stakeholders, in order to try to identify and understand the problems and act to prevent them. Although we observed that there has been significant progress in informing the patients about their rights through leaflets, 21