He brought a few patients, alcoholics from the mental home, with him. That is how the addicts’ rehabilitation department and the abstinence association came into being. In 1951 Dr Skála managed to establish záchytka, the sobering-up centre. Allegedly its first client was a Russian naval engineer. During the first thirty years the centre saw 180 thousand people. Similar centres were subsequently founded in other cities of the Republic and also in other parts of the world. The only difference was that in some countries they were considered as medical and in others as police institutions. Thanks to Dr Skála the Prague centre was regarded as a medical institution. The authority of the Police extends only up the white line behind which they were only allowed to step when asked by the employees of the centre. In the nineties it didn’t look well for the centres as various opinions questioning the necessity of such an institution appeared. In 1993 at the beginning of the summer holidays, the centre was closed because of the lack of employees. The head of the addicts’ rehabilitation department of the Faculty Hospital, Dr Petr Popov said that the old concept of sobering-up centres doesn’t make any sense because they often replace the activities of police institutions. He suggested a concept of emergency treatment of people under the influence of alcohol or other addictive drugs. But the purpose of the centre wasn’t just to pacify drunkards and provide them a place to sleep it off; it was also a place where alcohol addiction was treated. Thanks to doctor Skála about 12 thousand patients have been treated since the beginning of the nineteen nineties, nine thousand were men and three thousand women. On the 1st October the centre was reopened thanks to the consolidation of a budget. However, it was clear that it will have to be moved.
From Apolinář to Míčánka
In the beginning of 1994 the institution, with a capacity of 22 places, received 15 clients. The year 1994 was the time of deciding where to move the centre. In the end it was decided to move it to the Ministry’s hospital Na Míčánkách in Prague 10. In its new location the centre was more modest and it also provided consecutive health care and treatment for drug addicts. A fee of one thousand crowns was charged for one night plus an additional fee of 430 CZK for blood sampling. Prague contributed to financing the centre to the amount of three million crowns, which covered about 40 percent of expenses. Three years later Na Míčankách also opened a centre for drug addicts. In 1998 the fee for one night stay increased to 1200 crowns. About 10 patients stayed at the station every night, another twenty or so clients e.g. drivers were brought by police for blood tests. For a few days in 2000 Prague even had two stations. For fear of too excessive celebrations of the beginning of the new millennium, a provisional centre was opened in the Thomayer Hospital in Krč. In the end it took care of 16 people. The end of the centre Na Míčankách was drawing close because it was decided to close the Hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A proposal to move the centre to the Hospital in Vinohrady came almost immediately.
It will be Bulovka
However, a year later it became clear that the centre will be moved to Bulovka which was announced by the Deputy Mayor Otto Kechner . A building at Bulovka was chosen for this purpose and its reconstruction cost 13 million crowns. The new centre at Bulovka was opened at the end of January 2004; the building was a property of the City.
The station had 17 beds (two for an intensive care) and already by the beginning of February it received its first 30 patients. Supposing a drunk fails to pay his fee, it is covered by the City Council that subsequently recovers the debt through legal channels. According to the senior consultant of the station Jan Podlaha it is very important that the station is connected to the Hospital Bulovka where patients can be easily examined. The pattern of patients hasn’t changed much. Most commonly they are middle aged men, women compose 20 percent. The total cost of the centre’s building was about 22 million crowns. It is equipped with an internal camera system which enables observation of patients and has unbreakable windows. During the opening of the centre the Mayor Pavel Bém said that he was familiar with the institution because in the time of the founder Jaroslava Skála he used to work as a psychiatrist in the centre U Apolináře. In Bulovka the centre was separated from the place for drug addicts. This service is now provided by the Psychiatric Hospital Bohnice. In 2005 drunken schoolchildren also ended up in the centre. It was a year when city police came across altogether eleven children of school age, two out of them were girls. One boy even had to be taken to the unit of intensive care because he had dangerous levels of alcohol intoxication. Since 2006 the so called “alcoholic taxi” is also used by the city police. It is a special car that is, among other things, equipped with a broom, bucket and other cleaning stuff. It is a relief,
said the city police spokesman Ladislav Bernášek. The police were taking drunks to the station in company cars and the cleaning cost was quite high. On top of that, aggressive drunks were often vandalizing the interiors of cars. The special car has a rather austere interior and there isn’t much to be destroyed. In a half year about thousand drunks were brought to Bulovka by police. Therefore a second special car was given to the city police in July 2006. Those cars operate 24 hours a day and are also equipped with a wheelchair and a spirophore. The cars are intended for people under the influence of alcohol whose life is not endangered. Others are taken to the institution by an ambulance.
A night at Bulovka costs 1788 crowns which is considerably less then in Kolín. The most expensive place has to be Plzen where a fee of two thousand crowns applies.
Oskar Exner