Today (October 10, 2023) is World Mental Health Day. This year the theme is “Mental health is a human right.” How are human rights related to mental health? We answered some common questions in an article about mental health and human rights. Now, MQ editor Juliette Burton explores how the law affects our individual rights when it comes to serious mental illness and the impact that can have on lives.
Every year I wait with bated breath to hear what the “theme” of World Mental Health Day (WMD) is. Just as I do with the ‘theme’ of Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) in May. It’s kind of like how some people might wait excitedly to hear the lineup of the football team they support or how some might feel when seeing the latest Fall/Winter collections. For me, it’s like looking forward to hearing the poster for Strictly Come Dancing or Drag Race UK.
This October, the theme is “Mental health is a human right.”
This seems like a much broader topic than the previous topics. While in previous years of WMHD or MHAW we have discussed mental health in the context of broader ideologies like “resilience” or a condition like “eating disorders,” this is a HUGE expansion of mental health as a RIGHT.
It is difficult to argue against the concept of having human rights. However, as I understand it, it is a real job to argue what exactly IS a human right. I think that job is called ‘human rights lawyer’. My understanding of that work comes mainly from Colin Firth’s character in Bridget Jones’s Diary: a very busy, serious and important human rights lawyer who defends the rights of education, expression and not to be unfairly punished, all while looking quite elegant. I’m pretty sure that last bit is mainly due to Firth and not a requirement of the law.
The first thing that came to mind when I heard about this topic, after Colin Firth as Mark Darcy of course, was being included in the mental health law.
I was committed under the mental health act when I was 17. This means I was kept in hospital under a law passed by the Government in 1983. This legislation covers the treatment, assessment and rights of people with mental illness.
This “detention” process occurs without your consent, to protect your right to life.
I was considered a “risk to myself or others,” a legal phrase that means that if doctors and people close to me agreed that I was putting my own health or safety or the health and safety of those around me at risk, then He would be hospitalized even though he was not prepared. I didn’t want to go to this hospital, even though I had been admitted before. And after this experience I was also hospitalized again.
Two rights legally go head to head when you are sectioned: the right to life and the right to liberty. This then becomes a gray area around other rights, such as your right not to be discriminated against and your right not to suffer inhuman treatment.
How can someone be sectioned?
You may be sectioned most commonly under section 2 and section 3 of this law. They arrested me for anorexia. I was told I was a month away from dying from the disease and showed no signs of changing my behavior. The decision to section me was to save my life. The reality is much more nuanced and complicated, something for another article. To avoid difficult moments to read and remember, I would briefly highlight the forced actions, derogatory comments, and severe stress that led me to experience audible, visual, and tactile psychotic hallucinations.
Psychosis was not why I was detained but was something I experienced as a result of losing my right to freedom. The stress of being sectioned and the way I was treated led to my psychosis, one of the most terrifying and confusing times of my life that has ever lived with me, impacted and imposed on my daily existence.
Basically, being sectioned meant that my right to liberty or freedom was taken away from me. And subsequently, the way I was treated was left open to interpretation. During the time I was sectioned, I was able to receive whatever treatment the staff deemed necessary. Legally, it didn’t have much basis. Learn more in this blog about human rights and mental health. That is why it is necessary to reform the mental health law.
Is the Mental Health Law being reformed?
There seems to be some confusion around whether the Mental Health Act, which hasn’t been reformed for longer than I have (and I hate to say that I’m now classed as middle-aged).
In 2021, the UK government said that consider reforming the Mental Health Law. This law, which has not been amended in 40 years, contains many things that could be modified.
He the reform could include changes for the people:
- Those who are sectioned, like me, are detained for shorter periods and only when it is vitally necessary,
- receiving treatment, like me, can exercise more choice and autonomy over your treatment, my experience along with MQ’s support of PPIE in research and the researchers’ overwhelmingly positive response to this encourages it as useful and productive for recovery and improvement of symptoms.
- are treated equally and fairly
- People with learning disabilities and autism receive better legal treatment
In January of this year (2023), the long-awaited reform of the law, which exists to help those in a mental health crisis to be admitted to hospital, moved closer to being updated when the joint committee of the Bill Mental Health Law published a report.
But in August, The Times published a worrying indication that the UK government was reconsidering the reform.
““Ministers are about to suspend a key government promise to reform the Mental Health Act, in a “betrayal” of thousands of people with serious illnesses.” The Times (August 2023)
The mental health law needs reform to make it work better for the people who need it most. People like me. The law must reflect the fact that we all have mental health as well as physical health. People with mental illnesses are humans. Forcing those of us who experience hardship into a position of “outsider” or “other” is dehumanizing. However, there is nothing more human than fighting to be alive.
As mental health falls further down the political agenda, MQ has joined a number of other organizations in calling on all parties, and the government, to prioritize mental health and health law reform mental. You can read more here.
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