The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Involuntary admission clause in Mental Health Act restrictive'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 18, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Involuntary admission clause in Mental Health Act restrictive'

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, DEC. 17. Jawahar (name changed), who hails from a village, is admitted with a psychiatric breakdown to a private hospital by his relatives. The Mental Health Act 1987 states that the minimum period of `involuntary admission' is 90 days. Jawahar, however, improves in a few days and has to go back to his village.

Kaustub (name changed) admits himself into a psychiatric nursing home with a case of mild anxiety. The Mental Health Act makes it mandatory that a `visitors board' comprising a lawyer, social worker and doctor from the community visit the young man. One of the board members even asks the patient some questions.

The Indian Association of Private Psychiatrists has formed a special task force headed by psychiatrist A.K. Kala to formulate amendments to the present Mental Health Act. The psychiatrists who were in Chennai to attend the annual conference discussed the lacunae in the present Act.

Several patients who have been admitted by their relatives, or `involuntary admissions', may not require to be in the nursing home's care for 90 days, says Dr. Kala from Ludhiana in Punjab. "Sometimes the patient may recover in 72 hours," he says, adding the clause was too restrictive.

He also made a point about the visitor's board, which has to inspect patients and the nursing home. "The relatives resent it. They feel that their privacy is invaded. While I agree that the board must inspect chronic cases admitted over a long period of time, they should not interfere with acute cases — who are admitted for a short while," he added.

Referring to Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code, Kuruvilla Thomas practising in Kochi at the Kusumagiri Mental Health Centre said it used the term `insanity', which is hardly in use in modern psychiatry. He explained the difference between `medical insanity' and `legal insanity'. Any abnormal behaviour can constitute medical insanity, he said. The cognitive and reasoning faculties should be impaired for a person to be certified as "legally insane."

Humane treatment

N.K. Bohra, president, Indian Association of Private Psychiatry, pressed for humane treatment of people who attempt to commit suicide. "They are already suffering. But instead of getting treatment, they get punished," he said. "The persons who abet suicide should be punished under this Section 309 (attempt to commit suicide), but not the poor patients," he added.

The draft of the Mental Health Act with the revisions will be ready by January before the annual conference in Chandigarh, added Dr. Thomas, also a member of the task force studying the Act.

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