Community responsibility.

This paper is concerned with the use of social and leisure activities as part of nursing work in a therapeutic community. It describes this element in the therapeutic programme of the Cassel Hospital. There is a brief introduction to the general principles of the therapeutic community and then to the nurses' role at the Cassel Hospital. The work in the sphere of social and leisure activities is seen as consistent with these principles. The structures enabling social and leisure activities to be integrated into the work of the hospital are described. Therapeutic opportunities are outlined, which arise when nurses work alongside patients in the course of such activities. This also serves to illustrate therapeutic community practice. There follows a discussion of the clinical significance of the voluntary element in this area of practice and of the related problems. Jacques' conceptualization of work and resistance to work are used at a number of points to link issues raised in the paper to existing psychodynamic theory.

Hospitals, Psychiatric↗

PubMed1998

Policies on assisted suicide in Dutch psychiatric facilities.

Recent jurisprudence in the Netherlands challenges psychiatric hospitals to formulate policies on how to approach requests for assisted suicide. This study examined whether such policies exist in Dutch psychiatric hospitals and general hospitals with psychiatric wards. The directors of patient care in 38 of the country's 52 psychiatric hospitals and 42 of the 59 general hospitals with psychiatric wards responded to a mail survey. Five psychiatric hospitals and six general hospitals had written policies. Almost half of the psychiatric hospitals had a verbal policy only. The majority of the hospitals with policies had a tolerant or permissive policy toward assisted suicide.

Hospitals, Psychiatric↗