personnel entered patients’ rooms without knocking and addressed patients by names. Moreover, patients placed in the observation room of one of the wards stated that they had limited access to use toilets (the same limitation was found in the Psychiatric Clinic of the Independent Public Clinical Hospital No 1 of the Pomeranian Medical Academy in Szczecin). According to patients, requests to be able to use the toilet outside specified hours were reluctantly fulfilled by the personnel. Patients also experience limitations concerning their free movement around the ward, although it is not banned by regulations, and the use of mp3 and mp4 players is prohibited. The National Preventive Mechanism recommended that the administration of the establishment strove to improve the treatment of patients by the personnel and eliminated inacceptable limitations of patients' rights and liberties in hospitals. The visiting persons also saw the need to guarantee the right of patients to privacy and intimacy. There are occasional cases of toilet doors only partly covering persons using the toilet (Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw). The Deputy Director of the Institute explained that it was due to security reasons. The National Preventive Mechanism did not see these explanations as sufficient and addressed the Director of the Department of Science and Higher Education of the Ministry of Health with a request to undertake relevant actions in this regard. It results from the explanations obtained, that patients of the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology suffer from neurological illnesses related with specific symptoms (e.g. loss of consciousness). Therefore, it is necessary to have constant contact with them. Toilet doors must allow the observation of patients. Given the above, the Director of the Department of Science and Higher Education stated that disputes concerning the relation between patient's intimacy and care for his life and health could become an academic discussion. In the light of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, he stated that observing patients is not reprehensible. Representatives of the Mechanism on many occasions recommended the lawful application of coercive measures. In one of the hospitals, among others, difficult communication, disorientation, lying on beds of other patients and taking various objects from them were treated as premises that justified immobilization of patients. On the basis of records in dossiers, it was difficult to conclude whether these premises had justified the application of such measures. In addition, according to obtained information, the medical personnel does not treat isolation and forced administration of medications as coercive measures and their application is not adequately recorded. The personnel also fails to notify the administration of the hospital about this fact (Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw). In reply, the Deputy Director of the Institute informed that the issue of documenting cases of applying coercive measures had been discussed with the personnel. He indicated that laconic justifications were a mistake, however, immobilisation was applied each time in compliance with legal premises. When it comes to forced administration of medications, the Deputy Director explained that forced administration of medications to patients admitted to hospital without their consent cannot be understood as a coercive measure. Such statement remains contrary to a basic guarantee for a patient obligatorily placed in an establishment: a free and informed consent for treatment87. In                                                              87 cf. Article 41 of CPT 8th General Report [CPT/Inf (98) 12].