Critics call them archaic and barbaric, cages that needlessly trap tormented souls who are already prisoners of their own minds.
Cage beds, fitted with metal bars or nets to control difficult patients, are being phased out across central and eastern Europe, ending a practice that dates to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This month, officials in Hungary and the Czech Republic ordered an end to their use at psychiatric hospitals. Slovenia abolished their use a few years ago, and Slovakia has banned them in some care facilities.
The Czech order came last week after Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling complained about the beds, joining the EU, Amnesty International and rights groups that have denounced them as inhuman and degrading.
All four countries recently joined the EU, which for years had criticized them for the use of cage beds. Mental health experts say the beds are still used in Croatia and elsewhere in the Balkans.
Rowling appealed to the Czech ambassador to Britain and to Czech President Vaclav Klaus to end the practice after seeing a report about a five-year-old mentally handicapped boy who spent most of his time in a cage bed at a Czech facility.
The Czech Republic's top health official responded by ordering the beds removed from psychiatric facilities, saying Rowling's appeal was the last straw prompting him to act.
However, the order did not extend to "social care" facilities, which care for people without psychiatric problems, such as the mentally retarded or physically disabled. There are 654 beds fitted with bars or netting in the country, and they will remain in use for now.
Dr. Pavel Cernak, Slovakia's chief psychiatrist, said other ways of restraining patients are worse.
"We think that tying people up, isolating them or sedating them more to restrain them is more inhuman than cage beds," he said.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS