“Care scandal” in the Kufstein psychiatric hospital – tirol.ORF.at
The nurse raises serious allegations of bullying against colleagues in the psychiatric ward, where he worked for years. The nurse has since resigned. According to lawyer Michael Rück, massive interventions in patients’ rights are also being documented in the ongoing bullying process.
He speaks of a grievance of unprecedented proportions. Recordings that were made against the will of patients and whose human dignity was violated were exchanged among the psychiatric nursing services at Kufstein Hospital.
Incidents should go public
The Innsbruck lawyer is personally shocked. “In my opinion, that’s enough to speak of a tangible nursing scandal.” In the psychiatric ward of the Kufstein district hospital, nursing staff seriously disregarded patients, data and human rights, criticizes the lawyer. He represents a registered nurse in a bullying trial. It is an ongoing procedure at the Regional Court of Innsbruck.
Incidents became known that, from the lawyer’s point of view, belong to the public: “You have to imagine that these are defenseless patients, some of whom are seriously ill with dementia. They are not in control of their will and in some cases have not been asked whether photos or videos should be taken. They were filmed and photographed in defamatory situations.”
Photos and videos in the Whatsapp group
Specifically, it is about a Whatsapp group of nursing staff in the psychiatric department of the BKH Kufstein. In several cases, patients were filmed and photographed by nursing staff, the recordings were shared in the Whatsapp group “Team Psychiatry”, the lawyer described, also provided with smileys and amusing comments. “Some of the videos even say that the patients say they don’t want a picture taken. In the background, laughing, it is said that no photo will be taken anyway, we will only make a video.”
One incident weighs particularly heavily, says lawyer Michael Rück. “This is an incident in which a nurse at Kufstein District Hospital films himself in the hospital’s actual room while performing sexual acts on himself. He then sent this video via social media to a psychiatric inpatient.”
accused continue to work
The hospital management and community association as the hospital operator have lodged a complaint with the data protection authority and conducted comprehensive surveys to clarify the incidents. But the measures taken so far are not enough for the lawyer. The people involved are still employed in the psychiatric department. “From an employment law perspective, terminations and dismissals must be announced immediately after knowledge of the respective incidents. It didn’t come to that. This has a far-reaching effect, since one also owes it to the general public to report. So that such incidents do not occur again in the future.”
At the request of ORF Tirol, the hospital management referred to the ongoing process in a written statement and planned further steps after the end of the process. In October, the bullying process WILL be negotiated further.