Mental Illness, Human Rights and the Law by Brendan D Kelly

Mental Illness, Human Rights and the Law by Brendan D Kelly

Author:Brendan D Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vearsa
Published: 2016-04-13T04:00:00+00:00


Criteria for involuntary admission

The Expert Group report recommends new criteria for involuntary admission as follows:

‘a. The individual is suffering from mental illness of a nature or degree of severity, which makes it necessary for him or her to receive treatment in an approved centre which cannot be given in the community;

b. It is immediately necessary for the protection of life of the person, for protection from a serious and imminent threat to the health of the person, or for the protection of other persons that he or she should receive such treatment, and it cannot be provided unless he or she is detained in an approved centre under the Act; and

c. The reception, detention and treatment of the person concerned in an approved centre would be likely to benefit the condition of that person to a material extent’ (Expert Group on the Review of the Mental Health Act 2001, 2015: p. 22).

The report recommends defining treatment to include ‘treatment to all patients admitted to or detained in an approved centre’ (i.e. not just involuntary patients) and ‘ancillary tests required for the purposes of safeguarding life, ameliorating the condition, restoring health or relieving suffering’; in addition, ‘the provision of safety and/or a safe environment alone does not constitute treatment’ (p. 18).

With regard to exclusions from detention, the 2001 Act states that a person cannot be involuntarily admitted ‘by reason only of the fact that the person: (a) is suffering from a personality disorder, (b) is socially deviant, or (c) is addicted to drugs or intoxicants’ (section 8(2)). The Expert Group Report recommends adding ‘(d) has an intellectual disability’ (p. 23) to this list, consistent with the elimination of ‘significant intellectual disability’ as a category of ‘mental disorder’ (p. 17) and in furtherance of the principles of the CRPD (United Nations, 2006). A person with intellectual disability could be detained only if they fulfilled the revised definition of ‘mental illness’ and the other proposed detention criteria.



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