The bill on mental health, already delivered to parliament, establishes that restrictions on the rights of people in need of care in this area are of “last resort” and are always applied for the periods strictly necessary.
Restrictions on the rights of persons in need of mental health care, such as the use of coercive measures, including seclusion and physical or chemical means of restraint, to prevent serious and imminent harm to the body or health of oneself or a third party – obey a use exclusively as a last resort and always for a period limited to your strict need“, says the diploma this Tuesday consulted by Lusa.
The bill was approved in the Council of Ministers held on July 14 and was admitted this Monday to the Assembly of the Republic, recognizing that, more than 20 years after the publication of the legislation on this matter, “the need to rethinking the organization of mental health care provision” in Portugal.
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According to the diploma, this Legislation review takes into account “enormous progress” at the clinical level in the last two decades, but also the commitments assumed by Portugal in this area with the World Health Organization, the Council of Europe, the European Union and other international organizations.
Given these commitments, the Government included in the Recovery and Resilience Plan presented to the European Commission the conclusion of the mental health reform, as one of the lines of reforms and investments in the National Health Service to be carried out by 2026.
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For the preparation of this bill, the Ministers of Health and Justice decided to create, in 2020, a working group in charge of presenting proposals.
According to the proposal approved by the Government, among the various rights of people in need of mental health care, the access to integrated and quality health caregives prevention to rehabilitationthat include responses to various health problems and that are appropriate to their family and social environment.
In addition, the diploma stipulates the right to be promoted to “empowerment and autonomy, in the various aspects of your life, regarding your will, preferences, independence and privacy“, as well as the right to “not be subject to measures that deprive or restrict freedom of unlimited or indefinite duration” and unless “subjected to coercive measures, including isolation and physical or chemical means of restraint, except as provided by law“.
On the other hand, the right of the person in need of mental health care in involuntary treatment is recognized to participate in all procedural acts that concern him directly, to designate a person of trust and to participate, to the extent of his possibilities. in their capacity, in the elaboration and execution of the respective care plan, actively participating in the decisions about the development of the therapeutic process.
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The figure, intentionally informal, of the person of trust is foreseen – the person chosen by those who need mental health care and expressly indicated by them to, with their agreement, support them in the exercise of their rights.
The new regime also seeks respond to a “persistent gap” in terms of protecting the wealth management of the mentally illregulating the terms in which it occurs.
In order to harmonize the current regimes with the proposed changes, the Government understands that it is necessary to precede the repeal of an article of the Penal Codewhich allows, in certain cases, the successive extension of the security measures for the internment of non-attributable persons.
Indeed, the subsistence of such a regime, although anchored in subparagraph 2 of article 30 of the Constitution, has been questioned for a long time, since it allows internment measures to have, in practice, an unlimited or even perpetual duration, contrary to the understanding that the rule that there can be no perpetual or unlimited or indefinite deprivation of liberty must apply to all citizens —attributable and non-attributable”, states the bill in the explanatory statement.
Still within the scope of the implementation of security measures for the internment of non-attributable persons, the proposal proposes reduce from two years to one year the frequency of the mandatory review of the inmate’s situationthus complying with a recommendation of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The diploma also creates the monitoring commission for the implementation of the legal regime of involuntary treatmentwhich is responsible, among other things, for visiting internment units and communicating directly with people in involuntary treatment, requesting or sending information on the situation of inmates to any administrative or judicial entity, and receiving and dealing with complaints.
Source: Observadora
