Mental health legislation needs to point to the future.

Abstract

The forum article by Professor Xie[1] raises the broad issue of whether mental health legislation in China needs to respond to the existing realities of the community mental health services system. Given the lack of community mental health resources in China, the burden of caring for persons with mental illnesses has traditionally been borne by families and by psychiatric hospitals. As China introduces its first national mental health legislation the concern is that it is premature to introduce legislative changes that the current community mental health service system is ill-prepared to implement. Professor Xie suggests that the extent and direction of the change to current practices proposed in the mental health legislation could have a negative impact on access to much needed services because it raises the threshold for involuntary treatment too high and increases the opportunities for challenging the decision to admit and treat. In our view there are two issues which need to be considered separately – the criteria for involuntary admission and treatment, and who is authorized to decide whether or not the criteria are met.