Urgent priority should be given to upgrading the quality of patient accommodation in the older sections of the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, the Council of Europe committee has recommended in its report.
The committee criticised a padded cell in the hospital which it said was "of antediluvian design and in a state of some dilapidation" and recommended that it be taken out of service. Six seclusion rooms in Unit 1 of the hospital "had no furnishings whatsoever" and "a distinctly carceral aspect".
Patients at the hospital should have "ready access to a lavatory at all times" and efforts should be made "to improve the decoration of patients' rooms throughout the establishment". The patients should also be provided "with lockable space within which they can keep their belongings".
The report noted "marked differences between the quality of patient accommodation offered in the more modern units and that available in the older building".
However, the committee praised "the generally positive and tension-free" relations between staff and patients. It said all of the patients interviewed "were very well informed about, and declared themselves happy with, the treatment they were receiving". Staffing levels were "on the whole sufficient" but the committee called for "the proportion of staff with specialised psychiatric nursing training to be increased".
The Government, in its response to the report, said that since May 1999, qualified psychiatric nursing staff had been deployed in the hospital and it planned to appoint more. It said the Eastern Health Board had included the cost of the refurbishment of the old building in its schedule of priority mental health capital requirements for this year and the Department of Health had provided a grant of £400,000 for this. The padded cell in unit 4 would be taken out of service.
