Mental Health Act
A Japanese law of 1987 that revised and renamed the Mental Hygiene Act. It introduced admission based on the patient's own consent (voluntary admission) and Psychiatric Review Boards.
In 1984 it came to light that patients at Utsunomiya Hospital in Tochigi Prefecture had died after being beaten by staff, and Japan's psychiatric care was criticised at the United Nations. A mission from the International Commission of Jurists and others that visited Japan in 1985 found no legal protection for patients either at admission or during their stay in hospital[1].
The amending law was promulgated on 26 September 1987. It required hospital managers to make efforts to admit patients on the basis of their own consent, and set up Psychiatric Review Boards in each prefecture, to which people admitted against their will could apply for discharge or better treatment[2][3]. It took effect in 1988[3].
Related terms
- Mental Hygiene ActA Japanese law of 1950 that prohibited home confinement and required patients to be cared for in hospitals and other designated facilities. Revised in 1987, it became the Mental Health Act.
- Voluntary admissionAdmission to a psychiatric hospital on the basis of the patient's own consent. In Japan it first entered the law with the Mental Health Act of 1987.
- Psychiatric Review BoardA body set up in each Japanese prefecture by the Mental Health Act of 1987, to which people admitted to psychiatric hospital against their will can apply for discharge or better treatment.
Sources
- T. W. Harding, J. Schneider, H. M. Visotsky, G. L. Graves, “Human Rights and Mental Patients in Japan: Report of a Mission on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Commission of Health Professionals,” Geneva: International Commission of Jurists (1986).
- Japan, “精神衛生法等の一部を改正する法律 (Act Partially Amending the Mental Hygiene Act), Act No. 98 of 26 September 1987, text as enacted,” House of Representatives of Japan (1987).
- E. Totsuka, “The history of Japanese psychiatry and the rights of mental patients,” Psychiatric Bulletin 14(4), 193–200 (1990).