Whose space is it?
An environment can be any setting where you receive mental health services: a family-care home, a social club, a case management agency, a doctor's office, a hospital. It should be a humane setting and user-friendly. You should have the greatest possible freedom consistent with safety for yourself and others.
You should have privacy when feasible, and reasonable accommodation should be made for disabilities. Access to your home should be available to you at all times and you should be able to come and go. The only time you should be hospitalized involuntarily is if (a) you have a mental illness, and (b) there is serious reason to believe you are a danger to yourself or others.
You cannot be involuntarily hospitalized merely for non-compliance, e.g., failing to see the doctor or not taking medications. If the result of non-compliance is that you become sick, and if you meet both criteria (a) and (b) above, then it is possible to seek to have you admitted to the hospital.
You are not restricted to services from your agency. At your discretion, you may consult outside professionals - e.g., medical, psychiatric, and legal - at your own expense.
Restraint and Seclusion
Sometimes staff have the power to restrain or seclude you in a hospital. The Act does not authorize the use of restraint or seclusion in private hospitals. You should get legal advice if you are in a private hospital and staff are proposing to restrain or seclude you.
Under the Act, restraint means applying devices, such as belts, harnesses, manacles, sheets and straps to your body to restrict your movement. It does not include using furniture that makes it hard for you to get off the furniture, such as beds with cot sides and chairs with tables fitted on the arms. You can only be restrained if it is necessary: -
- for your medical treatment, or
- to prevent you from hurting yourself or others, or
- to prevent you from persistently destroying property.
Seclusion means confinement on you own in a room where the doors and windows are locked. Seclusion may also be referred to as "time out" or high dependency unit (HDU). The only reasons you can be secluded are if it is necessary to: -
- protect you or any other person from immediate or imminent risk to health or safety, or
- to prevent you from absconding from the hospital.
Requirements of Restraint and Seclusion
You cannot be secluded or restrained for punishment and it should not be a threat. It would be very rare for a hospital to be able to lawfully restrain or seclude you if you are not an involuntary patient. Speak to a lawyer.
Even if you agree to restraint or seclusion:
- you must be given appropriate food, drink, bedding, clothing and have adequate toilet arrangements
- staff must record in your file the reasons you were restrained or secluded and how often you were monitored, and
- the restraint or seclusion must be reviewed as clinically appropriate at least every fifteen minutes by a registered nurse. You must also be examined by a doctor at least every four hours. It is possible for the psychiatrist to extend or reduce the time of you restraint or seclusion.
Once staff are satisfied that the reasons for restraint or seclusion no longer apply to you, you must be released without delay. The Department of Human Services has a guideline which recognises that restraint and seclusion can be intrusive and that staff should talk to you about it during and after the experience. It is an offence to restrain someone or keep someone in seclusion if it is not in line with the Act, and the service can be prosecuted and fined.
If you have a complaint about restraint or seclusion you can contact the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist (see Links page). The Chief Psychiatrist has the power to stop the restraint or seclusion.
* Some information on this page has come from the booklet "Patients' Rights - A Self-Help Guide To The Victorian Mental Health Act" produced by the Mental Health Legal Centre.
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