Psychopaths locked in by a law (2)

Assaults common

Apart from the intensive workload, the medical staff is constantly in danger of being assaulted by patients. "Every one of our doctors and nurses has been assaulted by patients at some stage," Sun said.

She said few medical graduates are choosing to become psychiatrists these days. There are only three medical schools in the country that offer psychiatric training.

"Medical school graduates will not go to a mental health institution if they can find work in another hospital. And there has been a high staff turnover rate among young doctors here in recent years," Sun said.

Expected release

"The day the new law came into effect many of our patients packed their stuff and expected to be released," Sun said.

However, when the time came it turned out differently. The center gave the patients legal consultations and had to advise them that it was very difficult to implement the new law at this stage.

Under the new law, patients who don't pose a danger to themselves or others should be released when they wish to be released. If the patients cannot complete the discharge procedures by themselves, guardians should take care of this.

Qiu Xiaoming, the director of the Shanghai Zhaowen Law Firm, told the Global Times that the law was impractical because it did not cover specific problems - for example, what a hospital or government department should do if a patient's relatives refused to take him or her back.

"There are no penalties for families that duck their responsibilities to care for these patients," Qiu said. He had handled a case where he had taken the wife of a patient to court. The woman refused to take her husband back home and was collecting his pension.

"Although the court decided that the woman should return the pension and take care of the husband, it was impossible for the court to enforce this ruling. Patients can still end up being refused entry at the very doorsteps of their own homes," Qiu said.

Apart from trying to escape the burden of taking care of patients, there are other reasons why relatives refuse to take patients back: some have rented the patients' rooms to others, or spent the patients' savings and allowances or have started new families. Other problems arise when there is not a spare room available in the home, or when all the family goes to work and there is no one to care for a patient during the day.

Although hospitals are obligated by law to release the patients, it would be irresponsible to just let the patients walk out by themselves. "Many have lost basic living skills after staying in the hospital for a long period. They can even have trouble catching a taxi," Qiu said.

He said that a hospital could end up being taken to court by patients' families if they allowed patients to leave unaccompanied and hospitals could also be taken to court by patients who could say they were not implementing the new law.

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