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Current AffairsCzech Constitutional Court rules against sending ten-year-old boy to psychiatric facility due to custody battle
The Czech Constitutional Court has just issued a verdict in favor of a
mother fighting to prevent her ten-year-old son – a perfectly healthy boy
-from being returned to a psychiatric hospital. The boy had already spent
six months there during his parents’ custody battle on the basis of a
previous court ruling. The court dealt with the case at the instigation of
the boy’s father who demanded that the boy be taken from his mother’s
care because she was biased against him and was having a bad influence on
the child. More
Current AffairsMDAC to challenge use of caged beds in Czech institutions in court
The international Mental Disability Advocacy Centre (MDAC) wants to take
the Czech Republic to court. The centre, an NGO promoting and protecting
the interests of people with mental health problems, hopes to challenge
the use of caged beds in Czech psychiatric wards and institutions. Caged
beds are in use in the Czech Republic to restrain patients with mental
disabilities. Although their use has been banned in Czech hospitals, they
continue to be common in residential homes that are battling with low
staff numbers and a severe lack of funding. Dita Asiedu reports:
More
Letter from PragueLearning English with Harry Potter
My wife has an eleven-year-old niece who simply adores fantasy stories,
like JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or Philip Pullman's books - readily
available in Czech. But, following the recent much-publicised launch date
of the sixth Harry Potter - the 2nd to last - JK Rowling's series once
again took centre stage in the centre of her world.
More
Current AffairsRemoving the stigma, integrating the patients
Mental health-care professionals are looking to transform the Czech
Republic's psychiatric care system on two fronts: Firstly, by launching a
campaign to de-stigmatise diseases like schizophrenia and depression, and
secondly by moving towards community based care.
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MailboxMailbox
In this week's edition: Czech sense of humour, J. K. Rowling's criticism of
caged beds in Czech psychiatric hospitals, the name "Czechia".
Listeners quoted: Asim Sharif, Roger Cook, Laurence Almond, Vladimir Val
Cymbal. More
Letter from PragueCaged beds - a hot potato in a cold summer
The long summer days in Prague are passing quite slowly. Most of the school
children have left the city for summer camps, lots of families have moved
southwards to the Mediterranean, where they hope to find sunnier weather.
Prague inhabitants have been substituted by tourists. The old Czech
government has formally resigned, and the time of waiting for the new one
is filled with speculation of what it should look like.
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Current Affairs"Harry Potter" author joins protest at caged beds in Czech hospitals
The Czech mental health services have once again come under fire as some
mental hospitals still use caged beds to help staff keep patients under
control. Last month, Britain's Sunday Times featured an extensive article
criticising such practices that are still used in post-Communist Central
Europe. And a few days ago the BBC aired a shocking programme telling the
story of a former psychiatric patient, forced to undergo treatment in a
caged bed in a hospital in the Moravian city Brno. But only now has the
controversial issue of caged-beds hit the Czech headlines, as J.K.
Rowling, British author of the popular Harry Potter novels, has joined the
protest.
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Current AffairsInspection at psychiatric children's ward brings shocking facts to light
An inspection by the health ministry at a psychiatric children's ward in
the town of Bites has revealed gross malpractice: unnecessarily large
amounts of tranquilizers to pacify distraught patients, injections being
used as a form of punishment, children being placed in isolation and left
there for much too long -even restrictions on taking a shower. As one of
the inspectors put it "the place looked as if time had stood still
for forty years and more" The results of the inspection -which was
made on the grounds of a complaint from the Children at Threat NGO - has
come as a shock and has left many people wondering whether such practices
are widespread or whether this was a shocking exception. We put that
question to Andrea Studihradova - president of the Czech Association for
Mental Health :
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