58
As of September 30, 2016, of the 150 authorized positions, 13 were vacant on the institution’s main
premises, 12 of them professional caretaker positions. In September 2016, two professional and four
technical staff members left, and only one professional and three technical workers were hired. The
institution did not have a resident physician. I asked the head of the institution to make a public call for
application for the position of a physician.
As the number of movement psychotherapists and activity-organizers did not reach the number
recommended by the law for residential institutions providing personal care, I suggested that the
institutions should hire more movement psychotherapists and developmental pedagogues. I requested
the Minister of Human Capacities to consider making the stuff number standards, recommended in
Annex 2 of Minister of Health, Social and Family Affairs Decree 1/2000 (I. 7.) SzCsM for residential
institutions providing personal care, mandatory as regards the movement psychotherapists and
activity-organizers.
Although there were male nurses working with the male residents in every unit of the institution,
bathing was mainly done by the female nurses. I asked the head of the institution to ensure the proper
number of male nurses among the staff.
Taking into account the size of the rooms and the number of residents placed therein, the statutory
minimum living space of six square meters was not guaranteed in every room. The nine, ten, eleven, or
even twelve beds in the overcrowded rooms practically left no living and moving space for the
residents and their visitors. I requested the institution’s supervisory authority, the General Directorate
of Social Affairs and Child Protection to organize the rooms in a way that would ensure the statutory
minimum 6 m2 per capita living space for every resident.
The residents were rarely visited. There were only a few of them who would receive visitors every
second week or once a month. Contacts with the guardians were not regular, either. One of the
residents explained that his guardian would contact him on his birthday, name day, on Easter and
Christmas days. I asked the head of the institution to get in touch with the guardians and request them
to make regular visits.
One of the residential rooms was used as conjugal room: the inmates spending the night there would
pack away their things for the day. The staff confirmed that the residents used to regularly masturbate
in front of each other in the large rooms; on one occasion, one of the members of the visiting
delegation witnessed such an incident. I requested the head of the institution to designate a room
exclusively for the purpose of conjugal room.
To facilitate exercising the right to complain anonymously, I requested the head of the institution to
have a complaint box installed in a visible place. I asked the Integrated Legal Protection Service to
ensure that the patients’ rights representative, when visiting the institution, would encourage the
residents to voice their desires, wishes, and complaints in order to improve their immediate
environment.
8.4.2. Platán Integrated Social Institution of Bács-Kiskun County179
My colleagues authorized to perform tasks related to the National Preventive Mechanism visited the
then Platán Residential Home operated by the Directorate of Health and Social Care Institutions
(hereinafter the “institution”) for the first time on June 23, 2015. At the time of the first visit, due to
some renovation works, the institution operated on temporary premises. In my report on the visit180
(hereinafter the “2015 Report”), I made several recommendations to the institution and its then
supervisory authority. The objective of the follow-up visit was to examine how my recommendations
179
180
Report № AJB-3772/2017
Report № AJB-1686/2015
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