[DRAFT] Access to Mental Healthcare

[Wille-Harlia]

So, here's the draft:

Access to Mental Healthcare
Category: Health | Strength: Significant

The World Assembly,

Noting that those with mental illnesses may have trouble going about their daily lives, especially when it comes to social interactions,

Concerned that some member-states of this esteemed Assembly do not have systems in place to care for the mentally disabled and that in some member-states, mentally disabled people are even discriminated against,

Committed to promoting the well-being of all our citizens by ensuring that their mental health is valued and guarded, hereby:

1. Entrusts the World Assembly Mentally Ill Persons Care Agency (WAMIPCA) to help achieve this goal;

a. Asserts that the WAMIPCA shall keep a public record of all known mental illnesses, and a private record of those who are afflicted by mental illnesses;

2. Encourages member states to set aside a portion of their governments’ yearly budget towards research into treatments and cures for mental illnesses;

3. Mandates that:

a. If a member-state does not already have a government agency akin in purpose to the WAMIPCA, then the member-state shall create one that shall be in charge of assigning nurses and/or other qualified professionals to care for a mentally ill person, at the request of the family of the mentally ill person in question,

b. In order for a person to receive care pertaining to a mental disability from a qualified professional, that person must be certified and recorded in the WAMIPCA database as mentally disabled by a licensed medical expert.

i. Mentally ill citizens of a member-state reserve the right to not be included in the private WAMIPCA database if they so choose

5. Empowers the WAMIPCA to provide care directly to the mentally ill if a member-state is otherwise unable to provide care itself by:

a. Sending licensed medical experts to care for the mentally ill populace of a member-state;

b. Sending licensed medical experts to the member-state to educate its populace on how to care for the mentally ill;

c. Aiding the government of the member-state in establishing care facilities for the mentally ill.

Now, I am a complete newbie when it comes to WA authorship, so please, give me any feedback you have. Also, I checked the list of passed GA resolutions, and none of them are about this topic, so I'm pretty sure this has not been done before, but I could be wrong.

[Honeydewistania]

"What does this proposal aim to legislate that hasn’t been covered by GA#97, Quality in Health Services?"

OOC: Welcome to the General Assembly

[Stentasia]

"a. Set aside a portion of their governments’ yearly budget towards research for mental illnesses;

b. Set aside a portion of their government’s yearly budget to further research into cures for mental illnesses;"

Do these not both achieve the same thing? What is the difference between research "for" mental illness and research "into cures"?

[Wille-Harlia]

"What does this proposal aim to legislate that hasn’t been covered by GA#97, Quality in Health Services?"

OOC: Welcome to the General Assembly

"Mr. Ambassador, while GA#97 mandates that every member-state shall have a healthcare system, creates the WHA to supervise these systems and/or to provide financial aid when needed to create such systems, and outlines the basic operating principles of said healthcare systems, this proposal aims to guarantee access to care for those who are specifically mentally disabled."

"a. Set aside a portion of their governments’ yearly budget towards research for mental illnesses;

b. Set aside a portion of their government’s yearly budget to further research into cures for mental illnesses;"

Do these not both achieve the same thing? What is the difference between research "for" mental illness and research "into cures"?

"Yes, it would seem that they do. 3B shall be removed."

[Honeydewistania]

"Ambassador Hill, there are differences between normal mental ailments and full intellectual disabilities. Which one are you trying to cover?"

[Wille-Harlia]

"Ambassador Hill, there are differences between normal mental ailments and full intellectual disabilities. Which one are you trying to cover?"

"Ambassador Hepperle, this proposal aims to guarantee access to mental healthcare for full intellectual disabilities for which no cure is known."

[Kenmoria]

“Welcome to the festering snakepit, ambassador. This isn’t an immediately disagreeable concept, which is good, but there are of course improvements to be made. Firstly, how is the WAMIPCA to keep this private record? That seems like a very challenging task, given the enormity of the combined populations of member states. There is also no provision for those who are afflicted by mental illnesses yet to not want to have such a record kept of them. Likewise, how would clause 4 work? Is this is a WA committee that would physically go into member states’ territories? That could cause a few problems with some of more isolationist states here.

5a should have somewhere ‘unless such is already existent’ or similar wording. Kenmoria doesn’t have such an agency, but I am sure there are multiple states which do. Also, 5b is misworded, since it currently prevents non-disabled people from receiving any care from a licensed professional whatsoever. You should have ‘to receive care pertaining to a mental disability’ rather than just ‘to receive care’.”

[Wille-Harlia]

“Welcome to the festering snakepit, ambassador. This isn’t an immediately disagreeable concept, which is good, but there are of course improvements to be made. Firstly, how is the WAMIPCA to keep this private record? That seems like a very challenging task, given the enormity of the combined populations of member states. There is also no provision for those who are afflicted by mental illnesses yet to not want to have such a record kept of them. Likewise, how would clause 4 work? Is this is a WA committee that would physically go into member states’ territories? That could cause a few problems with some of more isolationist states here.

5a should have somewhere ‘unless such is already existent’ or similar wording. Kenmoria doesn’t have such an agency, but I am sure there are multiple states which do. Also, 5b is misworded, since it currently prevents non-disabled people from receiving any care from a licensed professional whatsoever. You should have ‘to receive care pertaining to a mental disability’ rather than just ‘to receive care’.”

OOC: Edited, I think I got most of what you pointed out. Also reorganized the draft a bit to accommodate the changes.

[Wille-Harlia]

OOC: BUMP.

[Wille-Harlia]

"Do any other ambassadors have any criticism of this proposal?"

[Honeydewistania]

So, here's the draft:

Access to Mental Healthcare
Category: Health | Strength: Significant

"It seems that we have not one but two drafts with an imaginary strength. I believe Health | Healthcare is what you were looking for."

The World Assembly,

Noting that those with mental illnesses may have trouble going about their daily lives, especially when it comes to social interactions,

Concerned that some member-states of this esteemed Assembly do not have systems in place to care for the mentally disabled and that in some member-states, mentally disabled people are even discriminated against,

"Both those claims are unsubstantiated, and the latter is likely incorrect due to the existence of the Charter of Civil Rights (GA#35)."

Committed to promoting the well-being of all our citizens by ensuring that their mental health is valued and guarded, hereby:

1. Entrusts the World Assembly Mentally Ill Persons Care Agency (WAMIPCA) to help achieve this goal;

"You do not define how this 'WAMIPCA" will go about achieving your goal, and this may lead to problems. You should say:

1. Establishes the World Assembly Mentally Ill Persons Care Agency, and empowers it to do the following:

After that, list how the WAMPICA will achieve their goal."

3. Mandates that:

a. If a member-state does not already have a government agency akin in purpose to the WAMIPCA, then the member-state shall create one that shall be in charge of assigning nurses and/or other qualified professionals to care for a mentally ill person, at the request of the family of the mentally ill person in question,

"I do not understand why this clause is needed. Why are member nations required to create an agency? Why not require member nations to ensure that mentally ill people are assigned qualified professionals? This makes even less sense considering the existence of your WAMIPCA, so you already have your unnecessary bureaucracy."

b. In order for a person to receive care pertaining to a mental disability from a qualified professional, that person must be certified and recorded in the WAMIPCA database as mentally disabled by a licensed medical expert.

"To add on to my previous point, why the WAMIPCA? Why not mandate that the agency created by the nations do this?"

i. Mentally ill citizens of a member-state reserve the right to not be included in the private WAMIPCA database if they so choose

"You are missing ending punctuation here. In addition, I don't believe this is a good clause. What if your mental illness is paranoia and you are wary of government surveillance, and refuse to be included, and therefore denied treatment?"

5. Empowers the WAMIPCA to provide care directly to the mentally ill if a member-state is otherwise unable to provide care itself by:

a. Sending licensed medical experts to care for the mentally ill populace of a member-state;

b. Sending licensed medical experts to the member-state to educate its populace on how to care for the mentally ill;

c. Aiding the government of the member-state in establishing care facilities for the mentally ill.

"How will the WAMIPCA determine what member nations get help and what don't? This could be easily exploited by penny pincher nations, and should be fixed. Maybe require audits by an independent body to be conducted to properly determine that a member nation is totally unable to provide care. Check out GA#97, they have a good mechanism for this, don't copy it word for word though."

[Tinfect]

OOC:
I don't have the time to respond to this properly as-yet, but as a mentally ill person, I don't particularly like the idea of being automatically placed on some kind of international monitoring list, regardless of the option to opt-out.

[Ardiveds]

"Ambassador, we disagree with both of WAMIPCA's functions. Its first fuction, that is keepting records of mentally ill people as if they are some internationally wanted terrorists is unnecessary and unethical. Its second fucntion, that is providing healthcare to those people is also unnecessary. The member nations are perfectly capable of providing such. Current laws already mandate affordable healthcare and freedom to travel for medical reasons. If you are worried about the quality of healthcare, perhaps, mandate on the minimum standard of mental healthcare that governments must provides instead of creating this bureaucratic nightmare."

[Araraukar]

OOC:
I don't have the time to respond to this properly as-yet, but as a mentally ill person, I don't particularly like the idea of being automatically placed on some kind of international monitoring list, regardless of the option to opt-out.

OOC: Seconded. Having diagnoses may make one a danger to oneself, but rarely to others. Author, if it's hard to relate, think of this thing being done to anyone with allergies, or diabetes, or cancer, or any other kind of thing you have not intentionally caused on yourself and which is a very private thing. Imagine yourself being put on this list. Or your mother. Or your grandmother. Or sibling. Some family member you care about.

IC: "I have just one question to the author; what on earth makes you think that mental healthcare would not be included under "healthcare" more generally?"

OOC: There's also the problem of the list of "all known mental illnesses", given there was, once, a real mental illness diagnose that had the symptoms of "slave doesn't want to work on the fields and has strange ideas of wanting to be free". Not everything that can be diagnosed, should be diagnosed. There are also issues with PRA - I'd say 3.a. creates a contradiction with the person's right to refuse treatment. And the privacy clauses of that resolution are quite clearly violated by many clauses. Or would have to be, for the clauses of the proposal to work as intended.

Not to mention that this whole thing is written in a very trollish manner that I'm almost certain was not intentional, but it almost sounds like it was written to make people with mental health issues angry, rather than work as law text.

[Wille-Harlia]

"I apologize sincerely if I have offended any nation with this proposal as it is, I will work to improve it, and reword it so as not to be perceived as offensive."
OOC: I intend to get the next draft up sometime this week