Psychiatric patients deserve equal rights and services

Had society been completely intolerant of schizophrenic patients, John Forbes Nash would probably not have been named a Nobel Prize Laureate in 1994. The mathematician's extraordinarily "beautiful mind" would have probably been locked away by stigma and discrimination.

A seminar on the deinstitutionalization of mental health patients and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRDP) held in Beijing on Wednesday focused on the basic rights and dignities of disabled people. [By Wu Jin/China.org.cn]

However, thanks to the increasing involvement of compassionate and open-hearted people, a brand new concept for treating mentally disabled people, which involves deinstitutionalizing them from hospitals and medical homes and allowing them to go back to their communities, has been gaining strength.

The seminar on the deinstitutionalization of mental health patients and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRDP) held in Beijing on Wednesday focused on the basic rights and dignities of disabled people, especially those with mental disorders.

Due to social and emotional obstacles, people with psychiatric problems in China experience high rates of unemployment. As much as 90 percent of people with mental disorders stay at home without jobs and social interactions, said Wen Hong, president of the China Association of Persons with Psychiatric Disabilities and Their Relatives, a non-profit organization.

"Psychiatric patients should not be blamed for their illness, and they should be respected for their choices and decisions," said Yao Guizhong, Deputy Director of the Peking University Institute of Mental Health/The Sixth Hospital of Peking University (PUIMH).

"Sometimes, our government and health centers just take charge of too much for the psychiatric patients, who have rights and capabilities to lead their own lives," Yao continued.

According to the World Health Organization, in 2010, the world had 152 million people suffering from depression, and 26 million people worldwide had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

"Disability is an ordinary condition of all human beings," said Giampiero Griffo, Italy's representative for the Disabled Peoples' International.

To better improve the lives of people with disabilities, the UN issued the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006, which China signed in 2007. On May 1, 2013, China implemented its New Mental Health Law, which entitles psychiatric patients to more rights and choices.

"The adoption of the UN Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities in 2006 and the Mental Health Law in 2013 in China are major prospects for improving life for people with mental health conditions," said Alessandro Lorato, Coordinator of Associazione Italiana Amici di Raoul Follereau (AIFO).

Financed by the European Union, AIFO and Solidarieta'e Servizio (SoliS) have partnered with PUIMH and Aid and Services (AS) to establish community-based service centers for Chinese psychiatric patients in urban Beijing and the city's rural Yanqing County; Tongling, Anhui Province; Changchun, Jilin Province; and Ha'erbin, Heilongjiang Province. The projects allow psychiatric patients to live in communities and join in social activities.

Victor Giner, Attache of EU Cooperation Instruments, said that these projects set an example of how civil societies can constructively contribute to public health for locals.

However, Han Jibin, division director of China Disabled Persons' Federation Rehabilitation Department, said that despite the benefits of deinstitutionalization, the projects to integrate psychiatric patients to communities and societies should be based on concrete situations and realities. The community-based projects are in need of a substantial number of social workers and should be run institutionally.

The seminar is part of the European Union's Non-State Actors in Development Program-China, and is jointly held by Chinese and Italian organizations, including AIFO, SoliS, PUIMH, AS and Conferenza Permanente per la Salute Mentale nel Mondo.

China is learning from Italy's deinstitutionalized process, initiated by legislation brought forward by Franco Basaglia in 1978 which closed down all psychiatric hospitals. In Italy, psychiatric patients who need to stay in hospitals share rooms with other patients in comprehensive medical centers, and their stays average two weeks. In contrast, psychiatric inpatients in China stay in the hospital for an average of six weeks, and some even stay for 10 to 20 years.

Alberta Basaglia, psychologist and daughter of Franco Basaglia, also joined in the seminar.