32 ii) psychiatric care 41. In comparison with the general population, there is a high incidence of psychiatric symptoms among prisoners. Consequently, a doctor qualified in psychiatry should be attached to the health care service of each prison, and some of the nurses employed there should have had training in this field. The provision of medical and nursing staff, as well as the layout of prisons, should be such as to enable regular pharmacological, psychotherapeutic and occupational therapy programmes to be carried out. 42. The CPT wishes to stress the role to be played by prison management in the early detection of prisoners suffering from a psychiatric ailment (eg. depression, reactive state, etc.), with a view to enabling appropriate adjustments to be made to their environment. This activity can be encouraged by the provision of appropriate health training for certain members of the custodial staff. 43. A mentally ill prisoner should be kept and cared for in a hospital facility which is adequately equipped and possesses appropriately trained staff. That facility could be a civil mental hospital or a specially equipped psychiatric facility within the prison system. On the one hand, it is often advanced that, from an ethical standpoint, it is appropriate for mentally ill prisoners to be hospitalised outside the prison system, in institutions for which the public health service is responsible. On the other hand, it can be argued that the provision of psychiatric facilities within the prison system enables care to be administered in optimum conditions of security, and the activities of medical and social services intensified within that system. Whichever course is chosen, the accommodation capacity of the psychiatric facility in question should be adequate; too often there is a prolonged waiting period before a necessary transfer is effected. The transfer of the person concerned to a psychiatric facility should be treated as a matter of the highest priority. 44. A mentally disturbed and violent patient should be treated through close supervision and nursing support, combined, if considered appropriate, with sedatives. Resort to instruments of physical restraint shall only very rarely be justified and must always be either expressly ordered by a medical doctor or immediately brought to the attention of such a doctor with a view to seeking his approval. Instruments of physical restraint should be removed at the earliest possible opportunity. They should never be applied, or their application prolonged, as a punishment. In the event of resort being had to instruments of physical restraint, an entry should be made in both the patient's file and an appropriate register, with an indication of the times at which the measure began and ended, as well as of the circumstances of the case and the reasons for resorting to such means.

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