Redefining conditions of mental healthcare
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The Chinese government recently released a draft mental health law to gather public feedback. This draft is the result of a 26-year effort by legal experts and has received applause for its emphasis on patients’ individuals right and freedom. It is also believed that this law will set a good foundation to stop the notorious abuse of involuntary commitment of people wrongly accused of mental illness.
According to 2009 statistics, China now has over 100 million people suffering from mental illness, with 16 million being seriously ill.
Because of financial difficulties, a lack of awareness or an absence of channels through which to seek help, only 20 percent of seriously ill sufferers had received treatment.
There are sometimes also problems with diagnosis, which ignored people who should be hospitalized while institutionalizing those suffering from no mental illness.
Hopefully, this may change if the draft law becomes official. It stipulates that people who cannot or have difficulties to pay for treatment will receive funding and help from central and local governments.
More public focus, however, was placed upon the diagnosis and involuntary commitment section, especially after repeated media reports of healthy people being forced into mental institutions after trying to expose corruption cases.
Xu Wu, an employee with Wuhan Steel Corporation, was the latest prominent case after he ran away from a mental hospital and was recaptured by police as he tried to talk to the news media in Guangzhou.
According to past practices, almost any company, neighborhood committee or individual could send somebody they suspected of being mentally ill to a hospital where the person could find themselves confined, even if they claimed to be healthy.
The draft law now stipulates that a forced hospitalization would only be called in if a person displays behavior endangering themselves or others. Moreover, the draft requires the patient be diagnosed twice by two different hospitals if the first diagnosis suggests the person be hospitalized. The second diagnosis must be carried out by two licensed psychiatrists.
The draft law has been trying hard to ensure a fair diagnosis process. But what if doctors are bribed or influenced to favor a third party?
The draft has said mental experts from agencies authorized by the State’s judicial departments will step in if the patient still insists on a review.
However, there must be clear rules stating how doctors and those trying to commit an innocent healthy person should be held responsible and punished.
Deciding whether a person is mentally ill and how serious their illness is no easy task. Mistakes that led to healthy people being hospitalized or to troubled people left unsupervised and hurting others have happened in China as well as other countries.
But one thing is for sure, as some legal experts suggest, independent medical personnel will examine a patient, but deciding whether their freedom should be taken will be left to judicial department in order to avoid abuse.
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