BREAKING NEWS

Health Ministry creates panel to reduce tying down psychiatric patients

Health Ministry director-general Moshe Bar Siman Tov has appointed a committee of experts aimed at reducing the amount of tying down psychiatric patients to their beds. There have been reports recently that an excessive number of potentially violent patients in mental health facilities have been tied unnecessarily or for too long, even forcing them to urinate and defecate in their beds.
The committee, which will look into cases of mechanical limitations on the patients, will report back on how to minimize the phenomenon and propose recommendations by August 1. Dr. Boaz Lev, the former ministry director-general and associate director-general who is now ministry ombudsman, will be chairman of the time. Some of the other members are Prof. Avi Bleich, head of the ministry’s National Mental Health Council; Pnina Barblack, nursing head of the Lev Hasharon Mental Health Center; Dr. Tal Bergman-Levy, head of the ministry’s mental health branch; Prof. Ze’ev Kaplan, head of the Beersheba Mental Health Center, and Ran Ridnick, liaison for health in the Finance Ministry.