Legal Issues in Mental Health Nursing

Running head: LEGAL ISSUE 1
Nursing
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Legal issues in Mental heal nursing
Mental heal nursing
1009 words

LEGAL ISSUE 2
Introduction
There is a long history of keeping patients under the lock over spurious reason. Here in
Australia, the case is no different.One day, as I was walking down a psychiatrist ward, I oversaw
an incident at one of the male wards. After inquiring further about the scuffles, I learned that one
of the patients had refused to take his medication and the security had been called upon to take
the patient into an isolation room and medication forcefully injected into his system. “If I had
been informed what the medication was and what it was for, I would have complied and hence
not created a scene” The patient complains. Cases of patients being forced to take medication, or
even being put into isolation against their will are no news in the country. According to data
from the Mental health services in Australia Web, 258300 admissions are made overnight in
private and private mental hospitals. Out of these, more than 1/3(36%) are admitted on
involuntary admission. From this, we project that the incidence of involuntary admission is on
the increase in the country.
About the law
According to Mendelson and Lin (2016), there exist three chief mechanisms of detaining
patients in hospitals; Mental health act, disability acts and guardianship act. All the admissions to
a mental facility are subject to the mental Health Act of 1983, which was recently amended to
the Mental Health Act of 2007. The act gives medical practitioners the power to detain, and treat
patent with mental disorders for the interest own health and safety for other citizens. Each state
and territory has enacted a law which calls for detention of psychiatrist patients deemed into the
risk of harming themselves or others to enable the provision of mental treatment. There are two
ways in which a patient can gain admission; voluntary admission and involuntary admission.

LEGAL ISSUE 3
Under the involuntary hospitalization, there are circumstances that can force a patient to legally
get involuntary hospitalization for mental illness or compelled to receive medication without the
contest of the patient. The person will be detained against will if a team of two or more doctors
finds the person mentally ill after critically examining and diagnosing the patient and both agree
it is necessary to detain the patient. A team of third party doctors may be necessary if the two
doctors don't come into agreement. One of the doctors must be a psychiatrist. For the patient to
be detained, he or she should be diagnosed with a mental disease, be in urgent need of treatment
and the person is not in the capacity to make own decision about own health care. The patient
should be detained for no longer than three working days. After this, a team of mental Health
Review Tribunal is called upon to assess the case of the patient if the detainee is held captivity
for more than two weeks (Beaupert & Gooding, 2017).
Legal issue
One of the fundamental flaws is the definition between voluntary and involuntary patient
and the unequal rights that are given to them. There lacks a general clarity splitting the line
between the voluntarily and the involuntary treatment; and in some cases a total absence of a
statutory cutline. In the country, the credit of the team of doctors assessing your condition,
whether or not to receive involuntary treatment, the length of time to be held and who can extend
the time remains under siege.
Holding a patient against own will or keeping them under isolation limits them from
attaining the least restrictive environment possible. Thereshould be law safeguarding patient’s
decision is respected and treatment among the psychiatrist patient is carried out under the least
restrictive environment possible. This also creates the possibility of the patient being
inappropriately treated.Rendering from Adams et al (2018), an Australian court identified the