[ABANDONED] Standards for Mental Health Facilities

[Walfo]

Part 2 of 2 for Mental Health legislation, part 1 is here. Feel free to comment and help this proposal go through the drafting process. Thank you!

Standards For Mentally Heath Facilities

Category: Civil Rights

Strength: Significant

Proposed by: Walfo

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The World Assembly,

Appalled by the spaces in which mentally ill people are kept,

Aware of the importance of mental health facilities in the rehabilitation for mentally ill people,

Wishing to create a standard for mental health facilities and how they are run,

Hereby,

1. For the purposes of this resolution, defines:

1. "mental health facility" means any establishment, or any unit of an establishment, which as its primary function provides mental health care;
2. “mental health care” as the analysis and diagnosis of a person's mental condition, and treatment, care, and rehabilitation for a mental illness or suspected mental illness,
3. “health practitioner” as a doctor, psychologist, nurse, social worker, or another appropriately trained and qualified person with specific skills relevant to mental health care,
4. “patient” as a person receiving mental healthcare, and all persons who are admitted to a mental health facility;

2. Requires that:

1. a patient in a mental health facility shall be informed as soon as possible after admission, in a form and a language which the patient understands, of all his or her rights in accordance with national and WA law, which information shall include an explanation of those rights and how to exercise them,
2. a patient who has the necessary capacity has the right to nominate a person who should be informed on his or her behalf, as well as a person to represent his or her interests to the authorities of the facility,
3. when in a facility to have the right to,
   
   1. recognition everywhere as a person before the law,
   2. privacy,
   3. freedom of communication,
   4. freedom of religion;

3. Additionally requires that mental health facilities have:

1. facilities for recreation and leisure activities,
2. facilities for education,
3. facilities to purchase or receive items for daily living, recreation, and communication,
4. facilities for a patient's engagement in rehabilitation measures to promote reintegration into regular life, which includes vocational guidance, vocational training, and placement services;

4. Patients cannot be exploited for forced labor,

5. Demands that mental health facilities have:

1. the same level of resources as any other health establishment,
2. qualified health practitioners in sufficient numbers and with adequate space to provide each patient with privacy and a program of appropriate and active therapy,
3. diagnostic and therapeutic equipment for the patient,
4. adequate, regular, and comprehensive treatment, including supplies of medication.

[Walfo]

Future drafts will be placed here:

[Xanthorrhoea]

IC: This proposal places unreasonable standards on mental health facilities that would be so limiting as to force almost all facilities worldwide to shut down. This will hugely reduce access to care for the people who need it most. The people of Xanthorrhoea will do everything in our power to prevent this travesty from coming to pass!

OOC: Basically the same as IC. These requirements are ridiculous.

Firstly, "Mentally Health Facilities"

Next, in the preamble:

Don't tar everyone with the same brush, many mental health facilities are quite good, not all of them are "appalling". Also, people aren't 'kept' there, they go there for treatment.

People with mental illness aren't criminals, they don't need rehabilitation. They have a health problem that needs treatment.

Similar to my post on your othher proposal, don't say "mentally ill people".

Clauses 1 and 2 seem mostly ok, apart from clauses 2cii and 2civ. Unrestriced rights to privacy is not reasonable for patients with eating disorders/suicidal patients etc. I'm not sure why 2civ exists, I'm pretty sure it's already covered by previous legislation.

Clause 5a basically legislates that all mental health facilities are equipped the same as in ICU. This is stupid.

Clauses 5b,c & d seem oddly worded and too vague. What equipment should there be? A thermometer, a CT scanner, a ventilator? It's too vague to be enforceable.

I think the intended effect of clause 5 could be summed up in a single sentence: " Demands that mental healthh facilities have sufficient staffing and resources to provide appropriate treatment for their patients.


I applaud the intent of this proposal, but it needs a complete re-write to be acceptable. As it is, it imposes hugely onerous requirements on mental health facilities, and uses 100 words to say what can be stated in 10. The author seems to think that mental healtcare consists of giant prisons where Nurse Ratchett's roam the halls ignoring victims' pleas to be let out of their cages. I'm sure this happens in some of the more authoritarian regimes, but this is not the way to fix it.