Publications

Mental Health : Bill 68 (Mental Health Legislative Reform), 2000

Bill 68, (Mental Health Legislative Reform), 2000 adds new assessment and committal criteria to include seriously mentally ill persons and to allow their families and health professionals to intervene at an earlier stage in the committal process.
The Mental Health Act is amended to remove the word "imminent" wherever it appears in the current involuntary examination, assessment, admission and hearing and appeal rules in the Act. "Imminent" was removed because the term was unclear and has prevented people who needed treatment from getting it.
The provisions in the Mental Health Act (which permit a physician to order the examination, assessment or committal of a person) have been amended to permit the examination, assessment or committal of a person in the following circumstances :

The physician has examined the person;
The person has previously received treatment for mental disorder of an ongoing or recurring nature that, when not treated is of a nature or quality that likely will result in serious bodily harm to the person or to another person or substantial mental or physical deterioration of the person or serious physical impairment of the person;
The person has improved clinically as a result of the treatment;
The person is suffering from the same or similar mental disorder for which he or she received treatment in the past;
Given the person's history of mental disorder and current mental or physical condition the person is likely to cause serious bodily harm to himself or herself or another person or is likely to suffer substantial mental or physical deterioration or serious physical impairment; and
The person is incapable of consenting to his or her treatment in a psychiatric facility and the person's substitute decision-maker has consented.

The amendments add the ground of "substantial mental or physical deterioration" and focus on harms that could reasonably be expected to arise as a result of a lack of treatment in situations where the person has a history of serious mental disorder that has been successfully treated in the past.