When 30 year-old Vera Musilova's parents realized that they could no longer care for their mentally ill daughter at home, they arranged for her transfer to Prague's Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital where they assumed she would receive proper institutional care. Instead, her mother was horrified to discover that her daughter's condition deteriorated due to the poor care that she received in hospital, including the use of caged hospital beds where "problem" patients were often confined. According to a representative from the Czech Republic's Civic Commission for Human Rights, Jaroslava Mulisova reported finding her daughter locked into a caged bed. Vera was naked, dirty, and her head had been shaven to remove head lice. She was also in a severely dehydrated condition. Despite complaints to the hospital and the Czech Health Ministry, Vera Musilova died in April 2006 after choking to death on her own feces. While her parents launched a lawsuit over Vera's wrongful death, a recent Appeals Court ruling dismissed all claims against the hospital.
Although the use of caged hospital beds in the Czech Republic has spurred international outrage from the European Union, the United Nations, human rights groups such as Amnesty International, and psychiatry advocacy organizations around the world, psychiatric hospitals and clinics continue to use caged beds to restrain "problem" patients. After author J.K. Rowling launched a campaign against use of the beds (which she condemned as "torture") in 2004, the Czech Health Ministry announced that all metal caged beds would be immediately phased out. Despite this pledge, caged beds are still a common feature and and at least five other deaths have occurred while patients were confined to the beds.
One recent incident occurred in January of this year when a 51-year old female patient with a history of suicide attempts managed to hang herself in the cage. Although a security camera showed continuous images of her suicide to the nurse's station, no staff member came to her aid. According to Czech activist Michal Caletka in describing the suicide:
"She made a hole in the netting big enough to shove her head in there. Obviously no one 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 a camera..."
Reporting on poor treatment that he had also received as a psychiatric patient, Caletka added that patients were typically overmedicated, tied to beds, and kept in solitary confinement in cages. He said that patients "are left there on their own most of the day. Who cares?"
Hospital authorities have defended the use of caged beds as being "the mildest form of restraint" and that more severe methods of restraint would be used if the cages were no longer available. While the Czech Republic has ratified multiple United Nations and European human rights banning torture, the continuing use of caged beds in treating mentally ill patients remains controversial. Whether the latest death will lead to meaningful change remains to be seen.
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