Shaun Robinson, Chief Executive of Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Work is under way to replace the current Mental Health Act with something more up to date, removing the ability to treat unwell people with electric shock therapy and isolation.
A mental health boss has labelled the Mental Health Act as out-of-date and inadequate.
"And if I want to be blunt, it (the Act) supports a system where we effectively criminalise people who are very unwell and then subject them to quite brutal acts because we can't be bothered developing a better response to mental health," Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson tells The Detail.
Those "brutal acts" include electroshock therapy and solitary confinement.
"Solitary confinement is essentially where someone is put into a bare room with a mattress on the floor and a cardboard toilet, sometimes for up to two days. It's not okay," he says.
New Zealanders are now being encouraged to give submissions on a new Mental Health Bill, with the closing date extended until midnight on Friday 20 December.
The complexity of the bill has been acknowledged by the Health Committee, which "understands the need for lived experience communities and organisations to have enough time to prepare their submissions".
"Look, do it, give feedback," says Robinson. "One person, every 46 minutes, gets sectioned under the Act, it affects so many thousands of people... have your say. Put in a two-line submission if you have to, but it's important you have your say."
The bill will repeal and replace the Mental Health Act and aims to create a modern legislative framework for compulsory mental health care.
The current Mental Health Act has been criticised for not reflecting contemporary approaches to mental health care and for being out of step with New Zealand's international human rights commitments.
Robinson says solitary confinement, in particular, must go.
"The irony is the government has just apologised for abuse of children in state care, and one of the things that the inquiry into that abuse highlighted was solitary confinement, so we have apologised for doing it to young people, but we still have legislation that allows it to be done to extremely unwell people experiencing mental distress."
The new bill is intended to be a critical safety net for people who may need urgent intervention as a last resort.
It will establish principles to guide decision-making about compulsory care; enable patients to express their preferences and specify what care they agree to; set out the rights of patients, children, and young people; establish a complaints process; update the processes for assessment and care of patients; provide for people who enter compulsory mental health care through the justice system; reduce restrictive practices such as seclusion; and set out how compulsory mental health care will be administered, monitored, and reported on.
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