Mental health strategy backs Aussie veterans
SYDNEY, May 27 (Xinhua) — A new Veteran Mental Health Strategy to support contemporary Australian veterans and their families was released Monday by Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Warren Snowdon. The strategy sets out a ten-year framework for providing mental health care to veterans, underpinning the 26.4 million Australian dollars (25.89 million U.S. dollars) veteran mental [...]
Corrections plan to outsource mental health services puts the community at risk
Mark Sokolski, a nurse at Graterford, with his wife, Jolene, a ward clerk for the Department of Corrections, took part in an informational picket line at the prison over outsourcing. (Caitlin Morris / Staff Photographer) HARRISBURG – A number of Pennsylvania state legislators are opposing a Department of Corrections plan to outsource mental health services [...]
Government of Canada supports workplace mental health
TORONTO, May 24, 2013 /CNW/ – The Honourable Lisa Raitt, Canada’s Labour Minister, today participated in a round table discussion with union leaders to discuss workplace mental health issues. “Mental illness has a high cost in human, social and economic terms and studies show that in any given year, one in every five Canadians will suffer from a [...]
Opinion: Mental Health Nurse Initiative Program
The Australia government handed down the 2013 federal budget last night. If you are like me you have already scanned the long list of changes identifying which will affect your life and that of family and friends. The one area of this year’s budget which has stood out most to me is ‘mental health reform’. In [...]
Wrap of health news from the Federal Budget – Croakey
This post offers an overview of health-related news from the Budget and a wrap of reaction. Here are links to: • Health and Ageing Budget statements • A table giving a quick overview of health spends and cuts • Ministerial press releases • Closing the Gap press release • The Treasurer’s speech *** Overview of key announcements • $55.7 million over [...]
Mental-health patients given OK to leave ‘have nowhere to go’
Although a new law allows eligible mental-health patients to be discharged from a hospital when they want to leave, 52 patients at a Shanghai psychiatric hospital still find it difficult to go home. The new law on mental health, which took effect on Wednesday, grants patients the right to request to be discharged once they [...]
China’s new mental health law to make it harder for authorities to silence
The director of Xinjiang’s largest mental health institution has welcomed a new law, which went into effect on Wednesday, banning involuntary inpatient treatment for many people deemed mentally ill. “Seventy to 80 per cent of the patients have been forcibly admitted to the hospital,” said Xu Xiangdong, director of the Fourth People’s Hospital in the [...]
Is Beijing Really Committed to Its New Mental Health Law?
China’s first-ever mental health law will take effect on May 1, but rights groups remain skeptical that it will have any real effect on curbing wrongful institutionalization by communist officials. Passed last October, the new legislature stipulates that mentally ill patients must now give their consent before receiving inpatient treatment, unless considered a danger to [...]
Ambulance officers divided over mental health powers
ACT Ambulance Service. Photo: Graham Tidy The union representing ambulance officers will meet next week to discuss whether paramedics should be granted the power to apprehend mental health patients and transport them to hospital. Under draft changes to ACT mental health laws, paramedics would be given the authority to arrest and frisk seriously ill [...]
Proposed changes to handling mental health emergencies
Photo: Ms Gallagher says the changes would clarify the powers of paramedics and allow them to take mentally ill people to hospital involuntarily. (ABC News) The ACT Government is considering a series of changes to the mental health act which could see ambulance paramedics given the authority to arrest people with mental illnesses in emergency situations. [...]
