Melun's public hospital illegally isolated psychiatric patients and locked minors in adult wards, France's detention watchdog found.
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France's Contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté (CGLPL) issued urgent recommendations, published in the Journal officiel on 24 March 2026, after a 4-7 August 2025 follow-up visit to the 88-bed psychiatry division of the Groupe hospitalier Sud Île-de-France in Melun. It found seven in-patient deaths between January 2024 and August 2025, several in isolation or locked rooms without adequate monitoring. It also found isolation and restraint ordered for non-clinical reasons such as 'escape risk', minors held in adult units in isolation rooms locked at night, and a restraint register so incomplete that use of the measures could not be quantified. The CGLPL said the regional health agency's 2022 commitment to open a dedicated adolescent unit had not been met; the hospital said it had made improvements, which the controller rejected, and the Health Ministry was given four weeks to respond.
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