Still many problems at Almere psychiatric prison: Inspectorates
Despite multiple improvement processes, there are still a lot of problems at the Oostvaarders psychiatric clinic, which treats many people sentenced to treatment, in Almere. The clinic requires even stricter supervision, the Justice and Security Inspectorate (IJV) and the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ) concluded in an interim report, Omroep Flevoland reported.
The clinic has been under fire for several years because of numerous problems. This year, two patients died and two others had to be hospitalized after drug use. And since 2022, at least seven employees have been fired for having inappropriate relationships with patients.
The Inspectorates increased supervision on the clinic and imposed improvement trajectories, but these are not having enough effect yet.
According to the Inspectorates, the clinic lacks an integrated treatment vision. The healthcare professionals all perform their own, separate treatments instead of considering patient care as a complete process and working together. “Employees and teams experience little substantive guidance in their work and work as islands,” the Inspectorates said.
This lack of integrated vision also applies to improvement actions. Measures the clinic takes to improve treatments or safety are often not concrete and it is unclear how they relate to other improvement measures.
The clinic is also struggling with staff shortages. According to the Inspectorates, management reports that employees are never scheduled to work alone when working with multiple patients, but employees report that this is not true. Employees are sometimes even alone when they lock patients into their rooms for the night. The Inspectorates call that very irresponsible.
The Inspectorates called the employees at the clinic dedicated and enthusiastic. But they’re struggling with a high workload which has not lessened with measures taken. Employees don’t feel seen and do not dare to discuss certain topics with managers, the Inspectorates wrote, specifically mentioning “feelings for a patient” as a taboo.
The Inspectorates will monitor the clinic even more intensively in the coming months.
The Judicial Institutions Agency (DJI), which covers the Ooostvaaarders clinic as a psychiatric prison, reported that it would hire external experts “for the further implementation and coherence of improvement measures.”
