Elderly psychiatric patient found tied in bed

A mentally ill man was discovered tied down in his own bed with a sheet at a Carema-run nursing home in Stockholm earlier this month.

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According to other staff members at the Linnégården home, the man was left screaming for help for over an hour before somebody eventually came to look after him.

It was allegedly an unqualified temporary employee at the home who was responsible for the incident.

"The staff member had no medical training and was responsible for 15 psychiatric patients," several staff members told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper.

Of the 86 residents at the Carema home, 15 suffer from a variety of mental illnesses, including depression, schizophrenia and bipolarity and live in a special separate ward.

The incident was not out of the ordinary on the ward, however.

“The man often falls out and is then picked up by the lone night staff member with the help of the night nurse in the house,” said one member of staff.

However, one hour later, the man was still crying for help and staff from the floor below came in to investigate.

There they found him tied to the bed.

“He was upset and confused and could not get out of bed. The temp had tied him in bed with a sheet so he could not move, like they do in prisons in the United States,” said an employee at the home.

The patient was immediately untied and the incident reported to the home manager Charlotte Haggren. However the following day the unqualified temp was back at work.

“There is a discrepancy written in an incident and we are investigating this issue. We'll see if there are grounds for a lex Sarah report,” Kerstin Stålskog, who has overall responsibility for the care for the elderly at Carema told the newspaper that the company is looking into the matter and considering filing a report with the health board.

This is the latest in a string of incidents at the Carema-run care homes for the elderly.

Last month at Linnégården, an elderly patient was discovered in pitch darkness with no electricity in her room after she had apparently forgotten to pay her bill.