Patients secluded for more than 20 hours in NSW mental health units | Kaubo
Patients have been kept in seclusion rooms for more than 20 hours in NSW’s mental health units, which are struggling to balance the care and safety of both patients and nurses amid COVID-19 infections and staff shortages.
NSW Health set a seclusion benchmark of less than four hours following a parliamentary inquiry prompted by leaked footage of the 2014NSW Health acknowledges that secluding patients at risk of hurting themselves, other patients or staff, in locked rooms is a traumatising practice that should only be used as a last resort.
NSW Health acting chief psychiatrist Dr Michael Bowden said the rise in seclusion times had caused significant concern. “The point of seclusion is that it’s a safe place,” Dr Bowden said of the locked plain rooms with low lighting, a mattress and soft walls with no ligature points. Staff monitor a secluded patient regularly, usually via a window on the door.
Dr Bowden said COVID-19 restrictions that separated patients from family and the outside world had exacerbated the anxieties of vulnerable patients and made it more difficult for them to contain risky or aggressive behaviour.A spokeswoman for Cumberland Hospital also said COVID-19 restrictions contributed to the frequency and duration of seclusion episodes. Among the secluded patients were COVID-positive people.