Know your Rights Guide for Psych Survivors

This is a really fugly copy an paste of a pdf called Psyc-SurvivorBrochure

A Short Survivor Guide - Your Rights in Ontario's Psychiatric System
General Comments - Many psychiatric prisoners
(involuntary psychiatric patients) and survivors in the
community are not aware they have a few rights in the
Ontario psychiatric system. While locked up in a
psychoprison (any psychiatric facility), you have very
few rights (most are conditional or restricted) such as
the right to wear your own clothes - Right to refuse
psychiatric treatment like "medication" and electroshock
("ECT") (You can be forcibly treated if judged
"incapable") - Right to appeal involuntary committal -
Right to appeal doctor's judgment of "incapacity" - Right
to make phone calls, receive mail and have visitors -
Right to a copy of your psychiatric record or medical
chart (it can be challenged) - Right to contact an
advocate or lawyer.
There are a number of ways you can
be locked up in an Ontario psychoprison:
Apprehension by Police - Any police officer can take you
in for assessment if they observe you behaving in a manner
that in a normal person would be considered disorderly.*
*Brian’s Law” (passed by the government of Ontario
in 2000) removed the requirement that the cops actually
observe your disorderly behavior for themselves,
leaving open the possibility of you being locked up
based solely [on the word or opinion] of a third party.
Form 1 - Psychiatric Assessment Under Ontario's Mental Health Act. Form 1 (a legal
document) gives any doctor the authority to lock you up for 3 days or 72 hours in any
psychiatric facility including a ward or unit in a general hospital - without a hearing or trial.
The alleged reason is to see if you need psychiatric treatment or hospitalization for your
alleged "mental illness". This "period of observation and assessment" is actually the first
phase of involuntary committal. Before signing a Form 1, the doctor must examine you, it's
called "mental status examination" and generally lasts 20-30 minutes. While locked up, your
psychiatrist can restrain you but not treat you - a useless distinction. At this time, you can
call or see a lawyer, but can not appeal or start legal action.
Consent and Capacity Board Hearings - This board [usually] consists of
3-member panels and holds hearings in various psychoprisons across Ontario.
Each panel consists of a lawyer-chair, a psychiatrist not involved in your treatment
or hospital, and a lay person. After the Board receives your Form 16 application, it
notifies you of the date and time of your hearing which must be held within 7 days.
For more info, contact your advocate or lawyer. Your appeals must be addressed
to the Consent and Capacity Board or the Ontario Superior Court (see sections
below).
Power of Attorney - A Power of Attorney (POA) for Personal Care and Property
is a legal-government document, it's also called a "living will.” In the Personal Care
section, the main purpose is to make sure your treatment wishes are protected and
carried out if you are ever judged "incapable" to make treatment decisions. Fill out
the Personal Care section while capable as soon as possible. Be sure to write
down the name of your substitute decision-maker or person you want to make all
treatment decisions for you. Also write down the medical-psychiatric procedures
you want AND don't want. If your POA is challenged in court, a judge generally
respects it but may not. (See this site: www.icomm.ca/psaao/poac.html).
Further information on Brian’s Law or other provincial legislation can be obtained
from a provincial government bookstore, your local legal clinic or from the Ontario
Legislature’s website at www.ontla.on.ca.
Remember - you have the right to be treated with dignity and respect at all
times, and the right not to be abused, harmed or tortured. The challenge is
to exercise these rights.
Recommended Lawyers and Advocates
Anita Szigeti ph: 416-504-6544
Email: lawyers@hslaw.ca
Sue Fraser ph: 416-703-9555
Email: fraser@fraseradvocacy.com
Lora Patton ph: 416-736-5029 x33999
Email: lpatton@osgoode.yorku.ca
Parkdale Community Legal Services
ph: 416-531-2411
Legal Aid Office Toronto: 416-598-0200
375 University Ave. M-F, 8:30am-3:30pm
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)
ph: 416-925-6939 http://www.ocap.ca Produced by OCAP's Accessibility Committee
Restraints - During these first 3 days of incarceration, the psychiatrist can restrain
you with powerful, mind-damaging psychiatric drugs ("medication") and/or physical
restraints. Under the Mental Health Act, a doctor has the authority to forcibly subject you
to 2-point, 4-point or 5-point restraints - leather straps or cuffs tightly wrapped around
your arms and legs and/or waist making it hard [or impossible] to move. Or, the doctor
can order you to be kept for hours or days in "[locked] seclusion", a form of solitary
confinement. Every ward or unit has a "seclusion room". While restrained or in
seclusion, staff will probably deny your right to visitors and access to a phone. When
released from restraints or seclusion, you should immediately contact an advocate or
lawyer.
Form 2 - Like form 1, this legal document orders you to be locked up in any
psychoprison. It's ordered and signed by a justice of the peace. This form is issued after
another person in the community makes a complaint against you in front of a justice of
the peace. If the justice decides you need psychiatric treatment, the police have the
authority to take you to any nearby hospital where you're locked up for 3 days. [When
you arrive at the hospital, the doctor must admit you.] Again, you have the right to
contact an advocate or lawyer.
Form 3 - This form gives the doctor authority to keep you locked up for 2 more weeks
as an involuntary patient. Two doctors must sign Form 3. Within 24 hours of receiving
this form, a Rights Advisor from the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office must see you
to explain involuntary committal, the reasons(s) you're locked up, and inform you of your
right to appeal this committal to the Consent and Capacity Board (see "Informed
Consent/Right to Refuse " section below). Keep a copy of Form 3 and give one to your
advocate-lawyer.
Form 4+ - This document extends form 3, it's called a “certificate of renewal." This
certificate authorizes the psychiatrist and hospital to keep you locked up and/or treated
for 1 more month or longer. Your psychiatrist must sign it and give you a copy. You can
appeal the psychiatrist's decision by applying to the Consent and Capacity Board for a
hearing. (see "Form 16" and "Consent and Capacity Board Hearings" sections below)
Any licensed physician (it doesn’t have to be a psychiatrist) can initiate the
involuntary committal process if (in their subjective opinion) you “are suffering from
a mental disorder that makes you a danger to yourself or others, or makes you
incapable of caring for yourself.” “Brian’s Law” (passed by the government of
Ontario in 2000) provided yet another opportunity for doctors to commit [and forcibly
treat] you if they feel you are ”likely to show deterioration in the future if not treated
[and if they believe you're "incapable".]
Community Treatment Order (CTO) - If you have been a voluntary or
involuntary patient in any psychoprison on two occasions for 30 days or longer
within the last 3 years and currently meet the criteria for involuntary admission, a
doctor can issue a community treatment order (CTO) - whether you're in hospital or
the community. A CTO forces you to undergo treatment (usually psychiatric drugs)
in your community. The CTO "treatment plan" must be signed by you and the doctor
to be valid. If you refuse to sign a CTO while in hospital, you'll probably be locked
up longer. If you refuse to see a doctor or "take your meds" in the community, a
nurse, social worker, psychologist or psychiatrist on an Assertive Community
Treatment team (ACTT) will probably visit and pressure you to take the ordered
drugs, and/or call the police to take you to hospital where you'll be locked up again.
A CTO lasts 6 months, and can be renewed indefinitely. For more info, call an
advocate or lawyer. (see phone numbers on the back of this pamphlet)
Form 16 - To appeal your CTO, involuntary committal, treatment or judgment of
"incapacity", you must fill out and sign a Form 16. This form is your application for
a Consent & Capacity Board hearing. If the doctor labels you "incapable", your
decision-maker can help you fill out this form but you can still fill it out yourself. (see
"Power of Attorney" below). This form must be given to you whenever you request
it. Copies are available at the nursing station on your ward or unit and from a Rights
Advisor or Patient Advocate. Once you sign Form 16 and it's received by the Board,
you must be given a hearing within 7 days.
Informed Consent and Right to Refuse Treatment - Ontario's Health Care
Consent Act gives you the right (in theory) to be fully informed about any treatment
a doctor or psychiatrist prescribes, and your right to refuse any treatment. If you're
prescribed an antidepressant or neuroleptic ["antipsychotic"], for example, the
doctor must give you this information before you consent or refuse the drug(s).
Many psychiatrists violate one or more "elements" of informed consent as listed
below: - nature of the treatment - its major effects (physical & psychological) -
immediate side effects and risks - expected benefits of treatment - the likely
consequences of no treatment - alternatives. While giving you this information, the
doctor or psychiatrist can not threaten, pressure or coerce you to consent. Your
consent must be completely voluntary and informed.
If you do not want "medication", for example, and have not been labeled
"incapable" to make treatment decisions, you have the right to refuse the drug(s). if
the psychiatrist orders you to "take your meds" or labels you "incapable" after you
refuse, immediately contact your advocate or lawyer and tell them what happened.