OPINION> Commentary
Time to control mental care
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-02 07:48

Loopholes in current laws on the mental treatment of patients have led to chaos in some unscrupulous hospitals, says an article in Procuratorial Daily. Following is an excerpt:

Zou Yijun, a nun, recently sued two hospitals in Guangzhou and her parents for forcing her, a mentally sound woman, into mental hospitals after a family dispute two years ago.

The two hospitals helped Zou's family members forcibly treat her. Not only did the hospitals ban her from meeting any person but also monitored her 24 hours a day, gave her medical injections against her will and forced her to take other medicines.

She was treated in this way for three months.

She hopes her case will propel reform of the current system of accepting and treating mental patients and preventing others from suffering from similar misery.

Until now, no standard verification has been needed for a person to be sent to a mental hospital for forceful treatment.

And they seldom give the patients medical checkup properly before carrying out treatment just for the profit. It's high time laws were made to control mental treatment.

(China Daily 04/02/2009 page8)