Too often police forces are the only agency expected to respond to an emergency, particularly out of hours. Mental health services need better funding to support people properly.
Instead of forcing people into substance use treatment, provinces should work with municipalities and health boards to expand life-saving safe use sites and tackle the housing crisis.
New Zealand law allows people to be detained under a compulsory community treatment order – which they can’t refuse. But research shows compulsory treatment can make some mental health issues worse.
Stuart Murray, University of California, San Francisco
Anorexia nervosa can be a deadly disease. A recent analysis of several studies showed that it may be even harder to treat than previously believed. But the news isn’t all bad.
Arbitration hearings into the deaths of mentally ill patients has brought to light shocking cruelty and neglect on the part of South African officials.
Recent Queensland reforms – due to take effect in March 2017 – do not include legislative safeguards for a certain group of people with mental illness.
Until 2013, Australian state and territory laws allowed forcing people into psychiatric treatment if it was thought necessary to protect them from serious harm – even if they competently refused it.
Psychiatrists are here to try to make sense of the complexities of human behaviour in those who see them, and to help them get better. Many of those who are seen by psychiatrists are very ill indeed, and…
Claims that doctors are sectioning mental health patients in order to get them access to beds on psychiatric wards amount to “more than anecdotal evidence”, according to a committee of MPs who have just…