In March of this year a homeless women died in a sobering-up facility in Poznan. The cause of death was most probably due to the use of very strong insecticides inside the facility. There was hardly ever a doctor present on site, although he was supposed to examine the people transported to the facility. Following these events a discussion swept across the Polish press in connection with the need for these types of institutions to exist and operate.(29-MAY-08)

Written by Agnieszka Chmielecka/ HRH Warsaw
Source: Gazeta Wyborcza

There is no proper supervision over institutions where people are deprived of liberty – claims Slawomir Cybulski from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. – We save these peoples’ lives, we bath and treat them – replies the deputy head of the sobering-up facility in Warsaw. Currently sobering-up facilities are established and supervised by local governments, which in practice means that a place where a person is deprived of liberty is supervised similarly to a municipal library or an urban community center. We didn’t have to wait long for the outcome of such a solution. In Poznan a homeless woman died and the doctor working at the facility examined people ‘over the telephone’, forged work certificates and collected remuneration for it. It seems that it would be a good solution for courts to additionally supervise the sobering-up facilities, similarly to the way they supervise penal institutions or police detention centers. Today courts very rarely control the legitimacy of placement in a sobering-up facility.     

What exactly is a sobering-up facility?
It is also a great problem – says Cybulski – that we here do not exactly know what sobering-up facilities really are – whether they are healthcare or police institutions. On the one hand, people are brought there, who, while under the influence of alcohol, could die spending the night on the street in the fall or winter and at that time they are provided with medical and humanitarian aid. On the other hand – people are deprived of liberty there when they are aggressive and a threat to others after drinking. Are sobering-up facilities therefore essential? No, because when it comes to intoxicated individuals requiring medical assistance, their role could be taken over by healthcare institutions, and in the case of aggressive individuals – by police detention centers.
 
Finally however, it is worth mentioning that in recent years the stay conditions at sobering-up facilities have improved considerably. There is monitoring of rooms, clean sheets or constant medical attention.