A report by the Ombudsman returns to focus on the violations of rights that occur in Galician psychiatric sanitaries. On this occasion it is a private center – which has a concert with the Xunta – located in the municipality of O Pino, La Robleda, of the Hestia Alliance group. According to El Diario The countrya surprise inspection made in September 2024 detected that there are patients tied for weeks, which is enclosed in their rooms and also complaints of sexual aggression, in addition to income that extend for years without a medical justification and other violations such as cameras of Video surveillance in all rooms or restrictions to access technology.
The psychiatric center has been operating for half a century, but it was not transferred to its current location until 2007. It is these facilities that visited a few months ago without prior notice the technicians of the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture, under the Ombudsman and Centered in the facilities in which there is deprivation of liberty, such as psychiatric, prisons or minor centers. The conclusions have already been referred to the Ministry of Health of the Xunta, the Prosecutor’s Office and the inspected sanatorium.
Among the measures that they consider “bad praxis” are the “usual” use of the so -called mechanical containment, that is, to tie the patient, a resource that medical and human rights organizations ask to avoid using in people with psychiatric pathologies. Those responsible for the patient defender, who interviewed people admitted to oak and workers, stand out that there are immobilizations that extended for weeks. They cite the case of a person who looks “clearly calm” and without showing “any sign of aggressiveness, collaborating in the withdrawal of their clothes and in the rest of the instructions” to which it is tied. They saw it in recordings of the center cameras. Another patient adds the information of The countrywas immobilized nine days and then spent three others locked in his room, which is “a serious violation of basic rights”
That practice of isolating a patient is, according to the report, “very common” in the sanitarium, but is not collected in circular or internal documents. There is also no legal support for her, “the Ombudsman continues. It also analyzes the case of a patient who denounced that a worker sexually assaulted her and denigrated her when she was being subject to mechanical containment. She said she had touched her “intimate” and that he had insulted her. These statements appear in the medical history. The reaction of the center was to note that the recordings of the cameras would be reviewed, but the conclusions or activation of any protocol are not included following this case. Another patient was surprised while touched the chest to the same intern, something that was registered only in the medical file of man.
The report considers “unquestionable”, in view of what happened, that “the rigor in the detection of cases of possible sexual aggression is required.” The company Hestia Alliance responded in this regard that “the relevant investigations”, but “without being able to give validity to the statements of the person in question.” The information also includes that the group, which has 14 socio -health and mental health centers in several communities, ensures that it develops its activity with “medical criteria and supervision” and that the inspection of the Ombudsman “leaves much to be desired in his methodology” . He argues that there is “a notable and inevitable difference” between “a daily and continuous medical treatment in time” and that “derives from a tangential and sporadic approach, however well intentionally, in the course of a visit.” He adds that the Xunta makes a “demanding” supervision. The Galician government states in the information that monitors that there is a “correct” care in the center to the patients that derives, who are currently 26. In any case, he says that he will take into account the recommendations of the Ombudsman.
In the conclusions of the organism directed by Ángel Gabilondo, it is added that, when a patient is immobilized, a diaper is “routinely” because there is an “absence of supervision and lack of control.” In many cases, he adds, the reasons are not specified, the responsible professional or the final date of a containment. And it has been proven that there are patients who have been immobilized in their rooms, something that the inspectors denounce for the possible consequences: “It means facing the situation of having to sleep in a bed and a room where the people admitted have had to do with at times that can be lived highly traumatic. ”
The Ombudsman adds that there are video surveillance cameras in all rooms, which can be a violation of the right to privacy; that smoking patients are limited to the daily number of cigarettes, which “contravenes individual freedom”; and that inmates are prohibited from using technological devices. There are no own or shared computers and access to television is done in a restricted way. It also considers that there is a lack of personnel to serve all patients and points out that the average stay in the center, 187 days, is above the average psychiatric hospitalization in Galicia.
The BNG has announced since it will demand responsibilities to the Xunta for what qualifies as “very serious situation” in La Robleda. He will, the deputy Iria Carreira advanced, through initiatives in the Parliament in which she will claim “transparency and that everything that is happening comes to light” in that center. In his opinion, the facts collected by the Ombudsman are a sign of “the scarce concern of the Xunta for mental health and psychiatric patients.” Emphasize that this happens in a clinic with public financing.
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