Mental Healthcare - Legal Issues on Psychatry Health Care (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: B, Oxford University, language: English, abstract: Psychiatry is an area in human health that deals with the prevention, treatment and management of mental disorder. It involves examining a patient with a mental disorder considering his history about the disorder and application of some psychological tests. This is done by specialists on doctor-patient relationship, mental disorder treatments, diagnosis and other services. Psychiatric patient services has changed from the past due to an increase in mental health patients and conditions that the patients need in the health care facilities. This medical field has improved so that the health care institutions use more humane treatments though the mental health care facilities face different problems currently. Patients with mental disorders are always referred to as the psychiatric patients and are treated differently based on the kind of disorder they have, the severity of the his/her condition and how stable the patient is. They are admitted or treated at the psychiatric health care facilities on voluntary basis where a patient goes for treatment willingly or under forced circumstances when a patient does not want to go for mental health treatment though has a mental disorder. Admission of psychiatric patients is also influenced by mental health laws and court orders that call for forceful admission when a patient is a threat to his own life and others or has a condition that requires mental health examination and treatment under admission. Involuntary treatment though is not common since the patients are considered not to understand there conditions and are admitted on this basis with exceptions on the unconscious and inability to communicate. In different countries for example the USA and Canada, involuntary admission differ at the local jurisdiction that consider the cases of admission as either a patient having a mental condition or patients that are dangerous to themselves and/ or to others. In public facilities that have insufficient beds, it is the number of beds that determine the number of patients to be admitted.