6(A)(iii). Cage beds and restlessness

The use of cage beds to deal with agitated patients was another key theme addressed by patients. MDAC spoke with several elderly patients who had been labelled as ‘restless’ and for this reason had been placed in cage beds.

A 65-year-old female patient at Kosmonosy Psychiatric Hospital told MDAC that she had been in a cage bed every night for a year. She disliked how cage beds could be seen by other people through the windows. A recurring theme from cage bed victims was that “everybody can see you”, as a 30-year old male patient at the same hospital put it, highlighting the degrading experience of being on show in a cage.