WA's mental health services to be overhauled
01-January-2012
The State Government has announced a major overhaul of mental health services in Western Australia.
The Mental Health Minister Helen Morton has released a draft Mental Health Bill that will be open for public comment until March next year.
Under the bill the Council of Official Visitors, which oversees the rights of involuntary patients, will be replaced by a Mental Health Advocacy Service, and a new Mental Health Tribunal will replace the existing Mental Health Review Board.
The service will be headed by a full-time Chief Mental Health Advocate.
Mrs Morton says the new Advocate will have greater powers.
"At the moment the Council of Official Visitors doesn't have the kind of teeth that is required to actually require things to be done," she said.
"In this program they will have avenues by which that can happen.
Mrs Morton says under the changes police will no longer be the only ones able to transport mentally ill patients without their consent.
"Remember, these people are ill.
"They are not prisoners, they are not criminals, they are not people who are likely to be convicted.
"They are people who have an illness and it is more appropriate that they are provided with a secure ambulance service to be transferred from hospital to hospital or taken from home to hospital."
The use of electro-convulsive therapy on involuntary patients will also be banned, without prior approval from the new Tribunal.
The Government also wants to make it mandatory for employees in the mental health sector to report any sexual abuse against patients.
The maximum penalty for failing to report is a $6000 fine.
As first published by The ABC
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