Key Elements of Mental Health Law Reform: A Clinical Perspective

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• Key Elements of Mental Health Law Reform A
  Clinical Perspective
• Brendan Kelly
• Mater Misericordiae University Hospital
• University College Dublin

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• Ireland meets 80 out of 166 standards (48.2)
• Chief deficits Promoting rights
• Rights of families and carers
• Voluntary patients
• Vulnerable groups
• Economic and social rights
• Capacity legislation

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• Arrangement-focussed view of justice
• Realization-focussed view of justice

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n 81 recently detained individuals Treatment
was beneficial 78 Knew they had been
detained 86 Tribunal made this easier to
accept 46 Negative impact on family
relationships 28 Negative impact on
doctor-patient relationship 27
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n 820 GPs Not user-friendly 63 Increased
workload 27
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n 321 psychiatrists Training was
satisfactory 84 Increased workload 69 Dec
reased time with service-users 27 Changes in
relationships with service-users 41 .more
legalistic, conflicted relationships
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• Re-define voluntary patient
• Strengthen best interests dimension
• Introduce cumulative tribunal case-law
• Reduce legalism
• Broaden criteria for Circuit Court appeal
• approved mental health professionals?
• Mental capacity legislation...

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• Best ways to increase observance of human rights
  of the mentally ill
• Social policy
• Mental health policy
• Mental health law

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• Kelly BD
• Penroses Law in Ireland Ecological Analysis of
  Psychiatric Inpatients and Prisoners, 1963-2003.
• Irish Medical Journal
• 2007 100 373-4

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• Best ways to increase observance of human rights
  of the mentally ill
• Social policy
• Mental health policy
• Mental health law

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• Medicine is a social science, and politics
  nothing but medicine at a larger scale
• Rudolf Virchow
• (1821-1902)

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• Key Elements of Mental Health Law Reform A
  Clinical Perspective
• Brendan Kelly
• Mater Misericordiae University Hospital
• University College Dublin
• brendankelly35_at_gmail.com