Article from: AAP
January 02, 2008 11:05am

Staff at a Sydney hospital were forced to handcuff and sedate psychiatric patients in the emergency department for up to 36 hours because of a lack of mental health beds, the NSW opposition says.

Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said a psychiatric patient was admitted to Nepean Hospital's emergency department on April 27 and had to be restrained and sedated for 36 hours.

A week later, on May 4, another patient had to be handcuffed and sedated in the western Sydney hospital's emergency department for 30 hours, he said.

Mr O'Farrell said the extended stays in emergency was because of a lack of beds in the hospital's Pialla mental health unit.

"Psychiatric patients are being handcuffed to beds in the emergency department while the Iemma government ignores the serious concerns of frontline mental health professionals," Mr O'Farrell said.

"These patients deserve proper treatment for their psychiatric illness. They don't deserve to be handcuffed to a bed and sedated for upwards of 30 hours."

Mr O'Farrell said Pialla staff had written to WorkCover expressing concerns about conditions on the ward just three weeks before the first incident.

In the letter, obtained by the opposition, staff said nurses were being physically assaulted on average twice a month and duress alarms did not work.