Mental health law reforms will undermine patient care, warns AMA Vic
The proposed criteria for treatment orders will see some patients slip through the cracks, it says
Patients with deteriorating mental health will slip through the cracks under legal changes proposed by the Victorian Government, the state’s branch of the AMA says.
Victoria’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Act is being redrafted so patients can only be placed under involuntary treatment orders in the case of “serious psychological distress”.
It is a more limited requirement than the current criteria of “serious deterioration” in a patient’s mental or physical health.
The change reflects the demand made by the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System for a new approach that reduces human rights violations as well as the use of unnecessary treatment orders.
