Hmm....
I can tell a story about a man who went to church. An elderly fellow. While the sermon was underway, the gentleman began to masturbate. Obviously he had the look of ....errr....bliss on his face when he was done because the officiator of the sermon actually thought the gentleman was overcome with emotion from all of his shaking, until he found out otherwise, much to his embarassment and shock.
The reason he masturbated? The gentleman is in the early stages of dementia, a disease that takes away the reasoning and cognitive functioning in the brain. He didn't understand that what he was doing was wrong, and it's obvious he wasn't in his right mind when he masturbated in church.
I can see the man in the article doing things like this if he is mentally ill and couldn't reason what is right and wrong.
Go into any hospital or Nursing home and you will see patients do crazy things once in a while. I did clinicals recently in a nursing home and witnessed a man pull his pants down and start playing with his genitals while the female residents were all around relaxing. This was in the lounging area, next to the nurse's station, where everyone could see what he was doing with his private parts. I ended up being the one to usher him to his room to save the ladies, and himself, the embarassment. Also, it isn't just the men, the women do it too.
From the article I can see obvious disregard for patient privacy laws. IF they have patient privacy laws. Why didn't the nurses pull the privacy curtains?
With the nurses, it makes me wonder, on one hand I can understand why they laugh. If they spend too much time dwelling on what they have seen, they can get burnt out. On the other hand, they still should have pulled the curtain around him or even the lady so she wouldn't be subjected to the sight.
If the male patient was sane, and needed 'tension relief' but couldn't leave the bed. He should have asked for a privacy curtain and kept his noises low key. Sheesh.