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INSTITUTIONS: CZECH REPUBLIC MUST STOP CAGING HUMAN BEINGS

22 February 2012 /// Media release,  Prague, Czech Republic, European Network of (ex)users and Survivors of Psychiatry. The caging of human beings is a gross violation of international human rights law. Yet it continues to be acceptable ‘treatment‘ for psychiatric patients in the Czech Republic. The European Network of (Ex-) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (ENUSP) has learned of the recent suicide of a woman in a caged bed at Dobrany psychiatric clinic near Plzen. EDF calls for immediate action. 

 

>CAGING HUMAN BEING IN EUROPE: THE FACTS

According to reports in the Czech press, the 51-year-old woman hanged herself in the cage on the morning of January 20, 2012. She had been locked inside just hours earlier after being reported “restless“. Staff noted she had a history of self-harm. A security camera above the cage transmitted continuous images to the nurses‘ station, but no one intervened as the woman took her life. A police report ruled out foul play. But local activist and ENUSP Deputy Board Member Michal Caletka said the woman’s death exposes the extreme abuse and neglect being endured by people inside Czech mental hospitals:

"She made a hole in the netting big enough to shove her head in there… Obviously nobody was watching her and as usual, nobody is responsible for it. I don't know how long it takes to prepare a hole like that and suffocate oneself, but, I believe, long enough to notice on the camera...“

Caletka, himself a survivor of psychiatric caging, said distressed people are typically heavily drugged, tied to beds and kept in solitary confinement. Contact with staff is kept minimal. There is no public oversight.

“It is a quite common practice to lock everyone up and overmedicate [them]…The patients are left there on their own most of the day. Who cares?“

At least five other people have met “unexpected, unnatural and violent“ deaths while being restrained in cages in Czech psychiatric wards in recent years, according to ENUSP’s research. In 2006, 30-year-old Vera Musilova was found dead in a cage in Prague’s Bohnice hospital after she choked on her own faeces. She had been caged continuously for two months, and was naked, dehydrated, and dirty, with her head shaven. A recent Court of Appeal judgment held that the hospital didn’t owe the woman’s mother an apology for her daughter‘s treatment.

 

 

 >LIVES THAT DON’T MATTER

Net cages and other restraints remain legal and in use in psychiatric ‘care‘ across the Czech Republic despite heavy criticism from the international human rights community. The European Commission, the United Nations, the Council of Europe and psychiatric survivors have all condemned these barbaric responses to people in crisis. Author J K Rowling called for the banning of caging, declaring the practice “torture“.

Despite promises to end caging around the time of EU accession in 2004, the Czech Republic openly shuns its international law duties when it comes to psychiatric patients. The country has ratified multiple UN human rights treaties prohibiting torture. These include the Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRPD, designed to protect the rights of people in psychiatric settings, states:

“No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.“

ENUSP is aware that these rights are being mocked and betrayed daily inside psychiatric settings in the Czech Republic and elsewhere. After the death at Dobrany, prominent psychiatrists, including the head of Protective Treatment at Prague’s Bohnice hospital Jiri Svarc, pronounced the cages “one of the mildest forms of restraint“. They say that staff will resort to more severe techniques if caging is banned. Michal Caletka responds:

“We’re horrified this is the only way that mental health professionals know how to respond to people in distress: different kinds of torture and punishment. Many people turn to the mental health system because they want help with a serious crisis in their lives. All they get is a whole new layer of abuse and suffering.“ 

 

Institutionalisation is clearly a human rights issue for all EU Members States

Institutionalisation is characterised by inhumane environments, sedation, solitary confinement and physical restraint. The excluded residents are also deprived of the right to choose. Erik Olsen, EDF Executive Member who works for the NGO the European Network of (ex-) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (ENUSP) stated: “The institutionalisation of persons with disabilities is not only a problem limited to the UK’s care system, this case was merely one example. Our figures suggest that hundreds of thousands of people across the EU are housed in institutions. Further, we have identified that it is in fact a problem to which the EU still contributes financially via the Structural Funds when they are used to refurbish and create new institutions. Mainstreaming the UN Convention is the only way forward”

The only solution: the life in the community

In December 2010, the EU concluded the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which firmly establishes a life within the community as a fundamental right (Art 19). With such a strong legal basis EDF is fighting for the Deinstitutionalisation of persons with disabilities and is asking to promote transition towards high quality community based care.

Some EU countries correctly implement the Structural Funds to promote the transition to community based services. Therefore EDF is calling on Member States to stop using EU money to finance institutions. We also want the European Commission to ensure that no money is invested in projects aimed at restoring such facilities. 80 million European with disabilities want their dignity and to enjoy fundamental rights.


 

 

>A CALL FOR ACTION: WHAT YOU CAN DO


EDF wrote a letter to Leos Heger, Minister of Health of the Czech Republic.

The use of caged beds violates every aspect of human rights and dignity; it is grotesque, degrading, and torturous.

The damage to the human person resulting from this act of torture cannot be estimated.

ENUSP is extremely concerned about the gross violations of human rights and dignity now taking place in Czech psychiatric wards. As Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg said last year: “There is an atmosphere of impunity surrounding these violations."

We urge the international community to take action by sending messages to the Czech Ministry of Health.

 

SAMPLE MESSAGE

I am shocked and outraged by the recent death of a woman locked in a caged bed at Dobrany psychiatric clinic near Plzen.

I demand that the Czech government immediately bans and removes all caged (metal and netted) beds in psychiatric hospitals and any other treatment settings in the Czech Republic

I demand that the Czech government immediately bans all violent, forced and non-consensual psychiatric procedures, which are a replacement for real care. These procedures includes bed strapping, solitary confinement, and drugging, detention and institutionalisation against a person’s will. None of these practices are acceptable alternatives. They are human rights violations according to the UN Special Rapporteur for Torture and the UN Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. They must stop.

Signed,

Country:

Please send your message to:

Czech Ministry of Health

E Mail mzcr@mzcr.cz PO Box 81,Palacky ul. 375/4.128 01 Prague 2, Czech Republic

Source : http://praguemonitor.com/2012/01/26/pr%C3%A1vo-mental-hospital-patient-strangles-herself-caged-bed

 

Download EDF letter to the Minister of Health of the Czech Republic here

 

>ABOUT the European Network of (Ex-) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry

EUROPEAN NETWORK OF (EX-)USERS AND SURVIVORS OF PSYCHIATRY (ENUSP) is the only independent network of mental health service users and survivors of psychiatry at a European level. Our members are regional, national and local organisations and individuals from 39 countries united in the fight for human rights and self-determination. In addition to maintaining a Europe-wide support network, ENUSP has campaigned for the last nineteen years to end discriminatory and abusive treatment of users and survivors of psychiatry and advance accessible alternatives in the community. Our efforts help to expose coercive psychiatric treatment as a major human rights violation which must be dealt with through changes to public law and policy. We are consultants to the European Commission, the United Nations and other major public and non-profit bodies.

 

 

>CONTACTS

 

ENUSP

enusp.info@gmail.com

Michal Caletka michalcaletka@seznam.cz

 

EDF

Aurélien Daydé Aurelien.dayde@edf-feph.org | Press phone: +32 485 64 39 93 




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