Outpatient commitment—also called assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) or community treatment orders (CTO)—refers to a civil court procedure wherein a legal process orders an individual diagnosed with a severe mental disorder to adhere to an outpatient treatment plan designed to prevent further deterioration or recurrence that is harmful to themselves or others.
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health units or behavioral health units, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialize only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients. Others may specialize in the temporary or permanent containment of patients who need routine assistance, treatment, or a specialized and controlled environment due to a psychiatric disorder. Patients often choose voluntary commitment, but those whom psychiatrists believe to pose significant danger to themselves or others may be subject to involuntary commitment and involuntary treatment. Psychiatric hospitals may also be called psychiatric wards/units when they are a subunit of a regular hospital.
The Rosenhan experiment or Thud experiment was an experiment conducted to determine the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. The participants feigned hallucinations to enter psychiatric hospitals but acted normally afterwards. They were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and were given antipsychotic medication. The study was conducted by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal Science in 1973 under the title "On Being Sane in Insane Places". It is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis, and broached the topic of wrongful involuntary commitment. Rosenhan along with 8 other people went into these 12 hospitals across 5 states along the West coast of the US. The pseudo-patients who were only admitted for a short period of time went to a different hospital, hence they went to 12 hospitals but there were only 9 participants altogether.
The Mental Health Act 1983 (c.20) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It covers the reception, care and treatment of mentally disordered people, the management of their property and other related matters, forming part of the mental health law for the people in England and Wales. In particular, it provides the legislation by which people diagnosed with a mental disorder can be detained in a hospital or police custody and have their disorder assessed or treated against their wishes, informally known as "sectioning". Its use is reviewed and regulated by the Care Quality Commission. The Act was significantly amended by the Mental Health Act 2007. A white paper proposing changes to the act was published in 2021 following an independent review of the act by Simon Wessely.
Ruby Hall Clinic is a prominent hospital in the city of Pune, India. It is a 750-bed hospital facility with a staff of 300 consultants, 650 panel doctors and 1500 paramedical staff and was accredited by National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH).
The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences is a medical institution in Bangalore, India. NIMHANS is the apex centre for mental health and neuroscience education in the country. It is an Institute of National Importance operates autonomously under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. NIMHANS is ranked 4th best medical institute in India, in the current National Institutional Ranking Framework.
The multi-billion rupee Gurgaon kidney scandal came to light in January 2008 when police arrested several people for running a kidney transplant racket in Gurgaon, an industrial township near New Delhi, India. Kidneys from most of the victims, who were the poor hailing from the nearby western Uttar Pradesh, were transplanted into clients from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Greece. The police raid was prompted by complaints by the locals from Moradabad about illegal kidney sales. The man accused of the scandal, Amit Kumar, was arrested in Nepal on 7 February 2008 and has denied any hand in criminal activity.
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is a nonprofit organization established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Its stated mission is to "eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact patient and consumer protections." Many critics regard it as a Scientology front group whose purpose is to push the organization's anti-psychiatric agenda.
YerawadaPronunciation (help·info) is a neighbourhood of the city of Pune in the state of Maharashtra, India. Before that British Raj Yerawada was known as Yeraoda. Yerawada is one of the most densely populated areas in Pune. It is located at the beginning of Ahmednagar highway and also on the way to old Pune Airport at Lohagaon. This place can be reached after crossing Mula-Mutha River through Yerawada Bridge from Bund Garden.
Political abuse of psychiatry, also commonly referred to as punitive psychiatry, is the misuse of psychiatry, including diagnosis, detention, and treatment, for the purposes of obstructing the human rights of individuals and/or groups in a society. In other words, abuse of psychiatry is the deliberate action of having citizens psychiatrically diagnosed who need neither psychiatric restraint nor psychiatric treatment. Psychiatrists have been involved in human rights abuses in states across the world when the definitions of mental disease were expanded to include political disobedience. As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances. Nowadays, in many countries, political prisoners are sometimes confined and abused in psychiatric hospitals.
Central institute of Psychiatry is an institute that is directly governed by the Government of India. It is situated in Kanke, Ranchi in Jharkhand state of India.
Yerwada Central Jail is a noted high-security prison in Yerwada, Pune in Maharashtra. This is the largest prison in the state of Maharashtra, and also one of the largest prisons in South Asia, housing over 5,000 prisoners (2017) spread over various barracks and security zones, besides an open jail just outside its premises. Many well known nationalist fighters individuals including Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have been jailed here.
State Mental Health Institute is a psychiatric hospital based in Uttarakhand, India. It provides services to patients from Uttarakhand as well as adjoining states such as Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. The hospital's outpatient arm treats more than 10,000 patients per year. There are 30 beds for inpatient psychiatric admissions. It is situated in Selaqui, a part of Dehradun, Uttarakhand at National highway 72 about 25 km from main city towards Paonta Sahib.
Vidyasagar Institute of Mental Health and Neuro and Allied Sciences (VIMHANS) is a mental healthcare institution in South Delhi. It was founded in 1987 as a tribute to the Indian psychiatrist Vidya Sagar.
The Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS), formerly known as Hospital for Mental Diseases, Shahdara, is a mental health and neurosciences research institute based in Shahdara, New Delhi, India. IHBAS has the highest outpatient count among mental hospitals in the world. It also houses the state mental health authority (SMHA) of Delhi.
Involuntary commitment or civil commitment is a legal process through which an individual with symptoms of severe mental illness is court-ordered into treatment in a hospital (inpatient) or in the community (outpatient).
Mambalikalathil Sarada Menon was an Indian psychiatrist, social worker and the founder of Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF), a Chennai-based non-governmental organization working for the rehabilitation of people afflicted with schizophrenia and other mental disorders. An Avvaiyyar Award recipient, she was a former Madras Medical Service officer and the first woman psychiatrist in India. The Government of India awarded her the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1992, for her contributions to society.
Mental healthcare in India is a right secured to every person in the country by law. Indian mental health legislation, as per a 2017 study, meets 68% (119/175) of the World Health Organization (WHO) standards laid down in the WHO Checklist of Mental Health Legislation. However, human resources and expertise in the field of mental health in India is significantly low when compared to the population of the country. The allocation of the national healthcare budget to mental health is also low, standing at 0.16%. India's mental health policy was released in 2014.
Deepak Agrawal born 10 November 1970, is a professor neurosurgery at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi is one of the top 10 surgeons in the neurosurgery. During his stint as chairman computarization, he transformed the ICT processes at AIIMS, New Delhi and also helped patients in All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi to get a Unique Health Identification (UHID), which documents their entire journey in the hospital. He also pioneered stem cell research in Spinal cord injury in India. Dr. Agrawal has pioneered DREZotomy technique for neuropathic pain in India and has refined the procedure to make it safer and more accessible to patients.
