Abstract
<p align="LEFT">A number of possible answers have been proposed. Though most are perfectly sensible and, to varying degrees, helpful, none resolves the question entirely. The purpose of this paper is to consider those answers and to identify the merits and demerits of each.</p>
Highlights
Leslie Nielsen as Doctor Rumack: This woman has got to be taken to a hospital
– a psychiatric unit within a general hospital managed by a single NHS trust would be a discrete ‘hospital’, and its tight bounds would mark the limits within which a patient might be detained and beyond which s/he would require formal leave of absence
The definition of hospital that is provided by the Mental Health Act 1983 is neither more clear nor more helpful than the one given by Leslie Nielsen in Airplane! as this paper has attempted to explain, there was one respect in which his otherwise admirable reply got it wrong: the question is important
Summary
Leslie Nielsen as Doctor Rumack: This woman has got to be taken to a hospital. Elaine: A hospital? What is it? Dr Rumack: It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important .[2]One hesitates to cross swords with the estimable Leslie Neilson, both because he is estimable and because, in this moment from a classic funny film, he gave a plain answer to what is, when all’s said and done, a tricky question.In the context of detained patients, the question has excited a great deal of deliberation, and it continues to cause concern and, occasionally, real problems for mental health practitioners. Leslie Nielsen as Doctor Rumack: This woman has got to be taken to a hospital. Dr Rumack: It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important .[2]. One hesitates to cross swords with the estimable Leslie Neilson, both because he is estimable and because, in this moment from a classic funny film, he gave a plain answer to what is, when all’s said and done, a tricky question. In the context of detained patients, the question has excited a great deal of deliberation, and it continues to cause concern and, occasionally, real problems for mental health practitioners. It’s a question that the Mental Health Act seems unlikely to resolve. The purpose of this paper is to consider those answers and to identify the merits and demerits of each
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More From: International Journal of Mental Health and Capacity Law
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