Patients at Canberra's adult mental health unit have been becoming trapped in their rooms because of faulty doors at the $26 million facility, ACT Health figures reveal.
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Doors were jamming when closed or slammed by patients, locking them inside while panicked staff tried to help.
On several occasions, tradespeople had to be called in to pry open or break down the doors and release the distressed patients.
ACT Health said the problem was the result of a design fault at the 35-bed unit, which opened in April last year.
A spokeswoman said the doors had been repaired. Fairfax Media understands that on at least three occasions patients were locked inside their rooms for more than half an hour.
Tradespeople were called, with staff attempting to calm distressed and confused patients from the other side of the jammed doors.
The fault is not the first to be raised at the unit.
ACT Health supplied figures last month showing there had been 11 incidents reported where duress alarms at the facility had failed.
The numbers are based on voluntary reporting, with mental health workers saying the true figure was higher as many incidents were not reported.
An ACT Health spokeswoman said the alarm failures were caused by several factors, including handsets not being properly charged, a wireless upgrade to the system, interruptions associated with duress system testing and staff error.
It was also revealed last month that one of three $30,000 tables purchased for the unit by the ACT government had been broken not long after it was installed. The table was damaged after a distressed patient tried to tip it over.
The leg of the table was damaged in the incident, which the government said highlighted the need for extra heavy furniture at the facility.
The ACT Health spokeswoman said the doors on patient rooms were designed to open in both directions as a safety function, but that the doors had required modifications to stop them from "inadvertently locking when slammed".
"The issue with the doors was a design issue and it has been successfully resolved," she said.
The spokeswoman said the problem had been fixed while the building work was still under warranty.
ACT Health also produced figures last month showing there had been 65 reports of physical attacks on staff filed between April last year and June 2013. A further 56 reports had been filed for verbal and physical threats and six for near misses.
The data also showed 92 patients had left the facility without leave between April last year and June this year. Of those, 33 had returned while the majority of the remainder had their care followed up in the community.
