Patients eating their dinner on bedside lockers and others accessing illegal drugs were among the issues raised in the latest reports from the Mental Health Commission, released on Thursday.
According to the commission, an unannounced inspection of the Waterford Regional Hospital 10-bed acute psychiatry unit found patients confined to small areas around their beds.
The inspectors’ report found there was “no dedicated room or space in the acute unit for residents to engage in recreational activity” .
Residents’ choices were largely confined to spending their day lying on their bed, sitting on a hard chair by their bedside table, walking or standing in the “relatively small and cramped main hallway or in the garden” which functioned as a smoking area.
No diningroom
The report found the unit has no communal seating area or quiet space for residents to relax. There was no diningroom and residents ate all their meals off their bedside tables.
The inspectors noted that “one resident was completing a complex jigsaw puzzle on their bed-table which left them with no table to eat meals”. Where a resident wished to pursue an activity, such as reading or listening to music, they were obliged to do so at their bedside.
The report said there was a television in both the male and female dormitories, but there was no television in two single rooms and those residents had to go into the dormitories and sit adjacent to other residents’ beds if they wished to watch television.
An inspection of the Avonmore and Glencree units at Newcastle Hospital in Co Wicklow found issues with the use of mechanical restraint, premises, staffing and the availability of illicit drugs.
Illicit drugs
An inspection of incident report forms covering five months from January to May 2016 showed 14 recorded incidents where residents were either suspected of engaging in illicit drugs or where actual illicit drugs were found or handed over.
Some of the issues raised by residents included the use of illicit drugs and substances by other residents.
The inspectors also took issue with the detail surrounding the use of restraints, specifically the use of the words “as required” in place of a reason.
Three residents had a physical examination carried out within three hours of restraint, but there was no record of an examination in two cases.
There was no evidence that the residents’ next of kin were informed of the episodes of restraint in two cases and no reason for their not having been contacted was documented.
In relation to “consent to treatment” the report found three patients were receiving medicines for longer than three months.
