It still amazes me how much stigma there is about mental illness in Malaysia. Even educated people who should know better (and their gossiping wives) are not exempt from prejudice and would not allow their daughters or nieces to marry men suffering from bipolar disorder, for instance. Even if these bipolar patients are medicated, well-managed and under the care of a competent psychiatrist. To learn more about the Treatment of Bipolar Disorder: A Guide for Patients and Families, Click Here or Here.
Most lawyers and others in the legal profession are not au fait with the Mental Health Act 2001. This Act is mostly procedural, and unlke the Mental Health Act 1987 of the UK, does not provide mentally disordered patients with rights above and beyond those accorded to ordinary citizens. The UK law recognises that mentally disordered persons are vulnerable because of their illness and therefore require extra protection lest they be exploited.
For instance, "sectioned" psychiatric patients under the UK Act are not criminally liable for any wrong doing that they may do ~ it is recognised that it is the illness that made them do it and it's not their fault.
In Denmark, there is a Mental Health Foundation which educates the public about mental illness and provides cheap medications for patients. The newer atypical antipsychotics (e.g. olanzapine, risperidone), which have notably less side-effects than say the older neuroleptics such as chlorpromazine and haloperidol, are much more expensive and beyond the reach of the majority of patients, who by and large are unemployed because of their illness and hence cannot afford these newer, more expensive, medications.
Copyright 2003-2004 Azlan Adnan Legal Notice
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