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Reduced mobility caused by the wheelchairs’ flat tires is not a consequence of being detained, and
it is not the result of the patients’ state of health; it is the result of the Hospital’s failure to carry
out the necessary renovation works; therefore, it causes an impropriety related to degrading
treatment.
9.3. Women deprived of their liberty
The NPM met women deprived of their liberty in the course of almost all visits. One of the
women deprived of their liberty staying at the GRRC complained that, although she had had two
abortions in her home country, instead of the requested gynecological examination while in
asylum detention she had received only a fever reducer. Another woman was four and a half
months pregnant according to the medical examination conducted upon reception. She felt
aggrieved at not having been examined by a specialist irrespective of her explicit request. On the
second day of her stay at the GRRC, having fainted, she was taken, under police escort, to an
ambulatory ob/gyn clinic.
Women placed in the Therapeutic House and the disability unit of the Platán Residential Home
had to submit themselves to mandatory contraception in the form of injections or pills. A
contraceptive device was implanted, without her knowledge, in a disabled woman deprived of her
liberty wanting to get pregnant, with the approval of her guardian.
Responding to my recommendations made in the report on the visit to the Therapeutic House,
the Minister of Human Capacities promised to have the relevant legal regulation amended in a
way that would regulate cases when there is a disagreement between a woman under guardianship
and her guardian as far as intrauterine contraceptive devices, sterilization and abortion are
concerned. The Minister of Human Capacities is going to consider the preparation of a regulation
that would make it possible for disabled persons deprived of their liberty, living in residential
institutions, to keep and, with appropriate help, take care of their children while residing in the
institution.
9.4. Elderly persons deprived of their liberty
The visiting delegations paid special regard to the situation of the elderly. For the purpose of
performing the tasks of the NPM, the elderly are persons of or over 60 years of age.121
The elderly persons living in the Therapeutic House complained that they were staying in the
institution not of their own accord but upon the request or insistence of their relatives. Some of them
emphasized how much they missed their freedom. I was concerned that the institution had
placed some unsteady elderly persons in cage beds, some of which could not be opened from the
inside. The environment within the institution was expressly unstimulating; the elderly patients
spent their days in their beds or wandering aimlessly around the corridors, occasionally talking to
their roommates.
Elderly patients become more easily victims of aggression in a place of detention. During the visit
to the Merényi Hospital, the visiting delegation was informed that a young male patient had
physically abused an elderly lady who, having confused the sickroom, had lied down in the young
man’s bed.
Almost 30% of the patients in the Closed Psychiatric Ward of the Merényi Hospital were elderly
people. The provision of inadequate care to elderly, demented patients seemed to be a systemic
problem. Elderly people with psychiatric illness may not be placed in an assisted living center;
however, the waiting list for getting living-in social care is rather long. In one of its earlier reports
See p. 200, Népszámlálás, 4., Demográfiai adatok, Központi Statisztikai Hivatal 2013 (Demographical Data, The Census of
2011, published by the Central Statistical Office)
121
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