Mental Health Legislation

What it asks

What the petitioner did first

1. 10 Dec 2013
   Public Petitions Committee

   New Petitions
   1 mention
2. 4 Mar 2014
   Public Petitions Committee

   Current Petitions
   1 mention
3. 31 Mar 2015
   Public Petitions Committee

   New Petitions
   1 mention

1. Scotland125 43.9%
2. Not given63 22.1%
3. United Kingdom51 17.9%
4. England33 11.6%
5. Wales4 1.4%
6. United States3 1.1%
7. Northern Ireland2 0.7%
8. Canada1 0.4%
9. Spain1 0.4%
10. Cyprus1 0.4%
11. 1 other countries1 0.4%

1. Christine MacVicar 29 Sep 2013
   The Mental Health Act has done nothing to stop people being locked up for years without access to basic health care. Psychiatrists say it is not their job to find out why their patient is ill. Many have treatable physical illness and should not be there in the first place.
2. Lesley D McDade 29 Sep 2013
   I have raised a similar argument in the Scottish Human Rights Action Plan
3. Claire Muir 30 Sep 2013
   An invitation for an online discussion is offered. The mental health act is not ECHR compatible. Can anyone refute this here while we have a chance to reply ?
4. Judith Gilliland 30 Sep 2013
   I believe my son Joseph Gilliland would be alive today if he had not been unjustlly put on a CTO at the end of August 2008. It was in Herdmanflat Hospital Haddington.He was unable to appeal immediately and was forced to accept intramuscular injections. He described it as inhumane. He wrote to the Mental Welfare Commission to make a complaint but his letter was never answered.He was destroyed by the psychiatric treatment he received, including a wrong diagnosis of schizophrenia. He died on October 17th 2009.
5. Dominic Bere 30 Sep 2013
   I believe any such amendment should include measures to ensure it's enforceability. There's no point having a law which psyciatrists continue to flout with impunity. There should be tribunals run by totally non-medical people tasked with ensuring human rights are not being abused. These non-medical personnel must be afforded full powers to sift through every official statement made by medical personnel and to judge these statements in accordance with common standards of honesty, integrity and appropriateness. Furthermore, they must be afforded full power to examine evidence both supporting and contradicting these statements, by calling witnesses.
6. angus files 1 Oct 2013
   completely un just to the patient and only benefits the psychiatrics'
7. Robert M Cooper 3 Oct 2013
   This petition and appropriate action is long overdue
8. thomas leonard 4 Oct 2013
   There needs to be a clause in the act stating that medical practitioners who effecting criminally assault, torture, or attempt to murder their patients via the physical side effects of their psychiatric medications, or sexually abuse them, should be automatically prosecuted, and charged with criminal assault, torture, abuse of human rights, attempted murder, serial murder, rape, or with whatever criminal offence best suits their crime, and they should also forced to pay financial compensation and damages to their victims
9. Claire Muir 4 Oct 2013
   There is a clause in the Act. In fact it's a whole Act in itself called Human rights. The mental health act, the human rights act and the Scotland Act are all ignored in Scottish courts.
   It's only words. We need enforcement. Until we get enforcement psychiatry will be the only area where the criminal is protected and it is the victims that are arrested by the police. Apart from slavery and jews which have now stopped. Where is my Martin Luther King ? My Churchill ? Psych wards are laboratorys just look inside one they are not healing places of care. They are lawless hellholes.
10. Maurice Frank 5 Oct 2013
    All the references to the European Court of Human Rights are subject to the situation since 1999 described in PE6, that all court decisions, in that court and any other, are open endedly faultable on their reasoning. They are no longer ever final. This resulted from claiming finality for a factually impossible decision that 2 dated events happened in reverse order than the time order of their dates.
11. Andrew John Younger 6 Oct 2013
    1941 and seventy plus thousand Germans now executed in the name of racial hygiene. As the main planner a certain psychiatrist wrote, my thirty year dream has come true. Upon the revocation of the laws that gave legal right to take the lives of those Germans' considered "unworthy of living," we should ask where were the objections from psychiatry? Facts are those psychiatrists created the Shoah. When Hitler revoked the lawful killing of Germans it was psychiatrists whom took their machina to Poland, killing homosexuals, Jews, gypsies, anyone those psychiatrists considered unworthy of living. And where did they go at wars end, majority all returned to academic institutions. Psychiatry, its unwell, cannot cure, never developed a method of action for any of its treatments, psychiatry is lawful human experimentation, that cannot be fit and proper Scotland. Yet a monopoly exists, failure triumphs, choice is no option, too expensive, we must deny actual self management to those whom know best value. Today psychiatrists say their drugs are generally well tolerated, well in that statement existence of a fact, of a scientific truth, that a percentage of the populous cannot consume from nature a psychiatric drug treatment. I ask all where are those whom psychiatry releases and passes to those professionals those could treat and treat to wellness? In my own professional career I was taught a basic rule that a professional knows when to call another professional, then for what reason cannot psychiatry walk out of its institution and talk to another professional? That I believe displays a grave problem in any service.
12. george black 7 Oct 2013
    your capcha image is terrible ,out of focus and almost illegible
13. Moderator 7 Oct 2013
    FAO George Black, 12.48 on 07 Oct 2013. Thank you for your feedback. We will forward it to our IT department to look at.
14. Fiona Sinclair 8 Oct 2013
    What many people will not know is that people with Learning Disabilities and Autistic Spectrum Disorders are included within the provisions of the Mental Health Act, whether or not they have a mental illness. Autism Rights is campaigning to bring this to an end. Please read our Seven Deadly Points leaflet, which lays out why this is both discriminatory and dangerous. Just do a web search on Autism Rights and Scotland, and you will get our web address, which is exactly the same as our name
    - with a UK location.
    
    I gave a presentation earlier this year to the Scottish Parliament's Cross Party Group on Human Rights, entitled Should people with Learning Disabilities and Autism be included in the provisions of the Mental Health Act?. The fully referenced version of this presentation formed part of the response that I submitted on behalf of Autism Rights to the Scottish Human Rights Commission's Scottish National Action Plan (SNAP) on Human Rights. And here, rather bizarrely in this day and age, I am not permitted to post the weblink to this, but you can locate this very easily by going to the SHRC website.
    
    The Scottish Human Rights Commission included a number of the arguments made by Autism Rights in their Participation Report, especially in their section on mental health.
15. Andrew Smith 10 Oct 2013
    The ECtHR ruling notwithstanding,what has become of human compassion? Do most of these shrinks dwell in ivory towers?
16. Kathleen, Dowager Duchess of Hamilton 12 Oct 2013
    My husband underwent unlawful detention from which he never really recovered. Since his death I have found so many people have suffered in the same way. I am certain the Scottish Government, will help with this injustice.
17. William John Sell 12 Oct 2013
    Patients who suffer from dementia have human rights, as do their next of kin, relatives and carers. No mental health official should have the right to covertly predetermine that they should be detained under the Mental Health Act.
    There are different types of dementia which vary from mild to severe in their impairment of mental faculties. Therefore care plans should involve consultations with next of kin, relatives and carers, in a spirit of openness and candor.
18. Andrew Muir 13 Oct 2013
    The 2003 mental health act was rushed through parliament without proper scrutiny.
    
    It is a very bad piece of legislation. In 2009 a survey showed that at the end of their course of treatment only about half of people thought that it was right for them to have been sectioned.
    
    Four experiences have been put online. This can be found by searching the internet with Google. Try implementation, Ridley, Rosengard. Then duke, mental health, overhaul. Then Gilliland , express. Then Christine MacVicar, Spain. Then Claire Muir , Dumbarton
    
    These horrific stories, which are the tip of the iceberg, should not be happening in a so called civilised society, a fair country leading up to the independence vote.
    
    The admission process is very weak. Patients are treated worse than criminals. The reason for admission can be based on hearsay, relying on a single assessment by a doctor, with the interview by a Mental Health Officer and family contact often being ignored. The patient has no legal representation. In England the situation is improved since two doctors signatures are required.
    
    Anders Breivik, the Norwegian who murdered 77 people, was able to stand up in court and lucidly defend his actions publicly. He was able to examine the evidence and get excellent legal assistance. He proved that a report stating he was mentally ill was wrong. This justice is what Scotland should aspire to. The extra cost would be met by less people being sectioned.
    
    In the August 2012 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry it states that mental health services have overestimated the benefits of antipsychotics while underestimating the side effects and it is time to reevaluate the risk reward ratio of these drugs.
    
    The tribunal system is very poor and heavily biased against the patient. A tribunal is typically held in private, with the patient heavily sedated and the panel consisting of a psychiatrist, a lawyer and a health worker.
19. John & Rachel Sangster 16 Oct 2013
    A Care Plan should be tailored to the individual's illness and the needs of the patient always approved of by the next of kin.
20. Nik Allday 21 Oct 2013
    It would be insane for a mental health act to not comply with human rights.
21. Brian Arnold 22 Oct 2013
    Approach proposed for ECT belongs more to the dark ages.
22. Maggie Muir 28 Oct 2013
    Having had personal experience of a loved one with dementia being detained I would state that the impact of this experience has had a devestating effect on his health and well being and was of no benefit to him WHATSOEVER.
    I have grave concerns for those detained who have no one to advocate and fight on their behalf, the system is such that they just get lost, and one has to wonder how many people are exhibiting behaviours as a result of medication that is administered to meet the limited resources of the facilities and not the needs of the individual. Also the 'power' base of the medical hierarchy does not enable a balanced approach as the majority of individual family and carers do not have the financial or even knowledge capacity to challenge, added to this is the emotional turmoil and the fact that most carers are just so exhausted and do not have the energy to take on a battle. Let us not forget that there are a lot of caring staff involved who on a day to day basis do the best they can.
23. Anne McShane 28 Oct 2013
    This petition has long been needed. Mental health laws in this country are archaic and inhumane. Despite people speaking up about the treatment of people deemed to have a mental illness by others, nothing changes. Nobody cares unless it happens to you. This must change.
24. Fiona lundie 28 Oct 2013
    I had a family member become mentally unwell as a result of medically prescribed steroid use. Initially the psychiatrist expected an improvement within a week. Sadly he was moved hospital and the new registrar disagreed that is was due to steroids. he was later proved wrong. He decided to try to sanction my relative without my knowledge despite the fact I was actually visiting at the time. When I asked for a second opinion I was told it was nothing to do with me. He was wrongness two accounts. my opinion did count and I was due a second opinion, which thankfully agreed with me. My family member was not trying to leave as the nurses had decided his behaviour suggested. If only they has talked to us. Sadly our mentally ill people are treated rather badly as a result of ignorance about the mental health act by professionals. This act is used instead of care and treatment. When I was not around my relative was put under a short term order and THEN given one to one support and medication to which he settled immediately. When I asked why this was not tried first they were flabbergasted. MHA first. I fought and won twice to prevent sectioning apart from the short term one. It should not be a fight. The MHA is there to protect patients, not make life easier for nurses and medical staff.
25. florence hewitt 30 Oct 2013
    Stalinian... but it is all about money, isn'it ?
26. Cheryl Prax 30 Oct 2013
    I was wrongly detained by three strangers who did not know me or even try to find out about me. They did not explain why I was being detained and so I tried to escape. They broke my arm in two places. The next day they stole my mobile phone and then injected me for complaining. My employer got me out after 8 days of hell. This was 2009 and I still have not got over the injustice. Psychiatry has far too much power. They hold mothers and children and refuse to let their loved ones look after them. Jailed without trial.
27. Stanley Richardson 2 Nov 2013
    I was wrongly diagnosed with "chronic mental disorder" in order to cover up malpractice in the NHS as I was butchered by a surgeon who has already been found guilty of malpractice for similar nasty deeds on other patients, the NHS and the GMC are nothing but a bunch of crooks who will do anything to cover their evil practices. Pure Evil!!!
28. Sophie Palmer 4 Nov 2013
    While detention under the mental health act may be necessary for some, why is it used so much against young children who are denied the opportunity to live with their natural family?
29. Andrew Muir 4 Nov 2013
    I have been asked to post the following:
    
    "I have been fighting my sectioning since 2000, which was brought about by my husband, he received help from his relative in the police and his crooked lawyer. I was sectioned under a 117 warrant, which gives the police powers or another authorised person to enter the premises, your home, and remove you to a mental hospital for 72 hours. When in hospital my GP, who had only met me once when I changed to her practice, and a social worker who had the title of MHO whom I had never met, both sectioned me under a Section 24. They approached me with 6 other people outside my flat telling me they were there to section me. I started to run, I was assaulted, carried to the hallway of my building, thrown onto the concrete floor, flipped over and forcibly held face down, my trousers pants taken down and I was injected with anti psychotic drug into my bottom and knocked out. I woke up in a mental hospital with two doctors taking blood from my arm and on a ECG monitor. My cousins (my next of kin) were told by the nurse in charge at the time, that he was concerned about my high blood pressure and that he was not happy by the way that I was taken in to hospital.
    I have been denied a copy of the warrant from Aberdeen Social Services and Aberdeen Sheriff Court, and to date I still do not have a copy of the warrant or the diagnosis as to why I was sectioned. Having gone through the terrible experience of being forcibly detained, having no mental health history, the whole thing was based on lies. The law has to change all my complaints have fallen on deaf ears. One is left with a label and NO VOICE. The Mental Welfare Commission is not independent and does not take a stance to help people in their hour of need. They do not even answer your letters. The Scottish Government has to listen and change this process of sectioning which open to abuse and corruption. I feel for the Duchess and everyone else."
30. Norman Scarth 4 Nov 2013
    A mistake in diagnosis is one thing. DELIBERATE incarceration of whistle blowers in 'Mental Hospitals' to silence them is another! see www.normanscarth.blogspot.com , though it is not as up to date as it should be.
31. mike foreman 7 Nov 2013
    given my experiences as a social care supplier in shropshire from 2006 until the present day i am absolutely convinced that mental health service are facilitating the abuse vulnerable people for local authority fiscal advantage, an aktion nouveau if you will.
32. A. Burns 12 Nov 2013
    We have experience of the Mental Health Tribunal system and have submitted a report of how we found the process to the Scottish Government and other interested agencies which led to a recent meeting with the Minister for Public Health. We have drawn similar conclusions and have made similar recommendations. We support this petition. PEO1494
33. Claire Muir 13 Nov 2013
    "Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical : it is not a law at all."
    
    Maximillien Robespierre