hospital because the hospital argued that he raised several complaints to the hospital and its
medical staff that they customarily controlled its patients, forcing them to do such work as
cleaning.
In response, the accused argued that "patients' phone calls with the outside are restricted
to one hour in the morning or in the afternoon every day and distributing food or cleaning
is done voluntarily and staffs do not arbitrarily control patients without direction to do so
by a doctor. The reason why we discharged the complainant was that he disturbed other
patients, so the medical team gave him notice, but he continued his problematic actions, so
his discharge was an inevitable measure."
The Commission's investigation result showed that, although there had been no
conditions deemed justifiable for the complainant to have considerably undermined the
ward environment during his hospitalization, the accused discharged him without the
request or consent of his guardian, and customarily restricted use of phone calls by patients
without prescriptions of psychiatrists and even allowed staff to listen to phone calls and
restricted them. Moreover, such work as cleaning performed by patients was imposed on
them without prescriptions or involvement of the medical team. Accordingly, the
Commission decided that this violated their rights to receive optimal treatment,
requirements when restricting the freedom of action, and "occupational therapy guidelines"
prescribed in the Mental Health Act, thus infringing human worth and dignity, the right to
pursue happiness and secrecy of correspondence stipulated in Articles 10 and 18 of the
Constitution.
Based on this, the Commission recommended to the accused to come up with measures
to prevent unfair cases of discharge in the future and strictly comply with related
regulations in restricting correspondence and other actions of patients and work
participation, and to this end to provide human rights education for its staffs of which the
accused accepted all.
Chapter 3. Investigations and Remedies: Civil Rights Violations
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