When any company, organization or facility is designing either a new build or refurbishment of a psychiatric hospital or correctional facility for inmates and patients that suffer from mental illness, the key element in the design is to ensure no ligature points are present that will enable a bed sheet, cord or rope to be tied, looped to any one element of the room that would present itself as a ligature opportunity. These ligature points result in patient and inmate self-harming and in some instances death by suicide.
Regrettably, most standard items we have in our home bedrooms and bathrooms are not anti-ligature. They pose ligature opportunities so similar products have to be used specially designed for such applications, with the focus on providing the patient, inmate and nursing staff with a safe, secure environment.
Let us look at the many ways we can ensure the environment a mental health patient is in is a safe one and poses no ligature opportunities. There are three main categories which are as follows:
Load Released Anti-Ligature
These systems are used for curtain rails and the like and are designed to detach themselves when a preset load is applied to them. This is done using intelligent magnets that detect when the load is not normal and the magnets separate resulting in the curtain or blind falling to the floor.
Fixed Anti Ligature.
The products in this category are usually load bearing such as taps, handles for doors. Due to the nature of these items they cannot detach under load, so the ligature point is dramatically eliminated by redesigning the tap or door handles in a way that it isn’t possible to loop rope, material or cord around the product.
Anti Weapon.
These are items that can be extracted with force, such as TV brackets and televisions that could be used as a weapon when thrown at other patients, inmates or even staff.
Were does ProEnc’s Anti Ligature TV enclosure fit in?
As you can imagine ProEnc’s anti ligature TV enclosure prevents any access to the cables, TV bracket and the television itself.
ProEnc’s enclosures are made from steel and the patented design of their anti ligature TV enclosure is so that all 4 sides are sloping and eliminates material being looped around the casing and this is why it is specified in all new builds, extensions and refurbishments.
ProEncs range of protective cabinets come as standard with internal television brackets, high security locks (that cannot be opened without the key), thermostatic cooling, and the thickest viewing window in the industry. The enclosure is ready straight out the box, no having to put the case together – works straight out the box.