Comment on "Worker's saga forces change to the law" (China Daily, June 11)

Xu Wu's experience has drawn people's attention to the draft law on mental health, which says no one has the right to force a person to undergo psychiatric assessment.

The general practice has been to force individuals to undergo psychiatric assessment, for without force many mentally or intellectually challenged people would never be treated. Assessing a person's mental state without forcing him/her to undergo a test at times is impossible.

Most of the mentally challenged people are unwilling to undergo psychiatric assessment. Under such circumstances, if force is not applied how do we assess whether a person is mentally or intellectually challenged? If a person is not diagnosed by experts, not only will he/she continue suffering, but also will make others around him/her suffer.

Although there are cases in which mental assessment has been abused, without using force at times it is impossible to help the real patients. Given the dilemma, the authorities should find ways of preventing abuse, rather than ban forcible psychiatric assessment altogether.

Doremoke Niu, via e-mail

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(China Daily 06/20/2011 page9)