Objective: The Mental Health Act in New South Wales (NSW) has recently been revised, resulting in the Mental Health Bill 2007, which has been submitted to the NSW Parliament to be passed as law. The new Bill includes some changes to the sections dealing with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), particularly for involuntary patients. The implications of these changes for the provision of ECT in these patients are examined in this paper. Conclusions: New limits introduced in the Mental Health Bill 2007 may have potentially detrimental consequences for ECT therapy in involuntary patients and may inadvertently result in the provision of suboptimal ECT to these patients.
The worst ill patients will have difficulty receiving the right treatment with ECT. These involuntary patients are usually the ones that needs ECT the most.
Article:
Australas Psychiatry. 2007 Dec;15(6):457-60.
The NSW Mental Health Bill 2007: Implications for the provision of
electroconvulsive therapy.
Loo C.
PMID:3467708
Popularity: 1% [?]
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It is not true to say “no ECT for involuntary patients”. The Bill is proposing a tribunal system to authorise ECT for involuntary patients.