7(B)(i). Testimonies
A female patient in her 50s at Kosmonosy Psychiatric Hospital recalled a woman who was paralysed and who was always trying to stand up. Staff would strap the woman to a chair for most of the day, and then strap her to a bed at night.
Patients also reported that toileting in straps was also an issue: at Opařany Children’s Psychiatric Hospital, patients in straps were taken to the toilet “when possible”, but staff also used a box which they put under patients.
A 20-year-old male patient at Opava Psychiatric Hospital reported seeing people strapped for two or three days and sometimes for up to a week. He had seen staff feed people who were strapped. He said that people were strapped because “they couldn’t adjust to life here – they couldn’t handle it”, and gave an example of a man who kept yelling. As staff couldn’t stop him from yelling they strapped him. Another young man at Opava Psychiatric Hospital said that he had been strapped because he refused to take his pills: he was strapped by his wrists (until they hurt, he reported) and across his chest. This happened all day. He felt “like a dog”.
A 21-year-old man at the same hospital said that he had been strapped twice: once after he had made a “stupid remark”. That time he was strapped for almost two days, on his arms, legs and waist. He was released when he “got better” (“až se polepšil”). This demonstrates the arbitrariness of when a person is strapped, and when the straps are removed within a punitive context. He reported that the only attention he received from staff when strapped was food and medication. Of particular concern is that he had wanted to complain, but could not.80
Strapping at Kosmonosy Psychiatric Hospital
A man in his 50s with alcoholism explained that he prefers cage beds to straps because he could move more in a cage bed. He said that he has experienced being in straps for two days but if he is very aggressive then he is put in for four days.
During the period of strapping, he said that staff fed him meals, and when he needed to urinate they gave him a bottle. When he needed to defecate they accompanied him to the toilet. After he was released from the straps there was a rule that he was not allowed outside for a week. He said that he hates it because he could not smoke in straps, and that he felt like killing himself because he was so restrained, and that could not move because of the straps across his neck, arms, legs and they also crisscrossed his chest.
He reported that the straps were made from the same material as a fire-hose. “They pull it very tight, as tight as possible”, he said, recounting a time when a policeman tied the straps so tight that his hand turned blue. After they released him from the straps he felt stiff and said he was “not right” for about 2 days after.
