Human Rights

Cage Beds

ORAL QUESTION H-0342/04
for Question Time at the part-session in October 2004
by John Bowis to the Commission.

Will the Commission confirm that mental health will receive increased emphasis in the 2005 Work Programme? Will it further confirm that human rights and humane treatment are fundamental to good mental health practice in the European Union? Will it welcome the announcements in Hungary and Slovenia that caged beds are to be abolished and will it pursue their continued use in the Czech Republic and Slovakia? In this context, will it also salute Dr. Jan Pfeiffer, named as one of the TIME Magazine's 2004 European Heroes for his campaign for a humane mental health system, without such beds, in the Czech Republic?

Answer and exchange in the European Parliament, 26th October 2004:

2-272 Byrne, Commission: Mental Health is indeed a priority of the Community's public health policy and under the Public Health Programme (2003-2008). Under its first strand, dealing with health information, the Working Party on Mental Health has been created, bringing together project leaders and stakeholders. In the 2005 work plan, the focus of activities will be on promoting mental health and preventing mental disorders in children, adolescents and young people, based on improved data collection and analysis. There can be no doubt that human rights and humane treatment are fundamental to mental health practice.

The Commission welcomes the recent adoption of the Council of Europe's recommendation concerning the protection of the human rights and dignity of persons with mental disorders. It also supports the UN standard rules for the equalisation of opportunities for people with disabilities as well as the efforts to establish a UN legally binding instrument to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. The Commission is fully engaged in the negotiations on this instrument.

The Commission is aware of the use of caged beds within psychiatric and social care facilities in Hungary and Slovenia as well as in Slovakia and the Czech Republic and welcomes the report on this issue that was published in 2003 by the Mental Disability Advocacy Center. As a result of this report, the Commission made enquiries about the exact position on the use of caged beds in these countries and drew the attention of the national authorities to the necessity to remedy this problem. According to information then received by the Commission, it appeared that the situation was improving. It was reported that Hungary has imposed a caged bed ban that will come fully into force at the beginning of 2005. In the Czech Republic, caged beds are reported as being gradually replaced.

The Commission has launched a study on conditions in institutions in all the 25 Member States in order to establish the situation that currently exists, with a focus on disabled persons. The findings of this study, undertaken by Inclusion Europe, were presented in Brussels on 22 and 23 October. The study confirmed that caged beds, or netted beds - as they are also called - are indeed being used in several Member States, including old and new Member States. Furthermore, the study showed that the question of caged beds cannot be dissociated from the more general context of living conditions in large residential institutions. These conditions are sometimes unacceptable and do not respect the most elementary requirements of human respect and dignity. The study found that community-based residential services provide opportunities, but not guarantees, for better outcomes.

From 2005, the Commission will produce a biennial public report on the overall situation of people with disabilities in the European Union. The report is intended to provide a useful tool for all disability decision-makers by providing accurate, dynamic and up-to-date information on the situation of people with disabilities throughout the European Union.

The Commission salutes any appropriate efforts to make mental health systems as humane as possible. We also congratulate Dr Pfeiffer on his nomination as European Hero by Time Magazine.

2-273 Bowis (EPP-ED): There are not many of us here, but I hope that the answer given by Mr Byrne, our Commissioner, will be widely read. I would like to place on the record our thanks as a Parliament for his work for public health over the last five years, particularly in the area of mental health and the way he has ensured that this issue has risen up the agenda.

I invite him, as a last clarion call, to repeat that inhumane treatment in mental health is not to be tolerated in this Union.

That includes such things as caged beds, which should not be a part of any country’s policy. As he says, rights and dignity are what we seek. Rights and dignity are what he has talked about. Rights and dignity must be the future of European mental health policy.

2-274 Byrne, Commission: I should like to respond to my friend John Bowis’ kind words to me by saying how much I have appreciated working with this Parliament over the last five years on issues relating to public health, and not least with one of the leaders in Parliament on this subject: Mr Bowis himself. It has been a pleasure for me to work so closely with such experts in the field for the benefit of our citizens here in the European Union.

I accept his invitation to repeat what I have just said in relation to this issue, that the protection of those particularly those with mental health disorders in the European Union, is of paramount importance. Their human dignity ought to be respected by all Member States. This is something that I believe is appropriate, Commission believes it is appropriate, and I am happy to hear that this House takes the same view.