PROCEDURAL STEPS ON ASSESSMENT AND VERIFICATION IN FILING COURT PROCESSES IN THE FCT
HIGH COURT OF THE FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY, ABUJA. PROCEDURAL STEPS
ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS
1. Interpretation
2. Objectives of the Law
3. Establishment of the Lagos State Mental Health Service
4. Establishment and Composition of the Lagos State Mental Service Governing Board
5. Power of the Board
6. Functions of the Board
7. Tenure of Office of Members of the Board
8. Remuneration and Allowances
9. Cessation of office of Members of the Board
10. Meetings of the Board
11. Proceedings of the Board
12. Validity of Proceedings
13. Quorum
14. Power to Co-opt
15. Disclosure of Interest by Members of the Board
16. Voting
17.
18. Power to give Directive to the Board
19. The Secretary of the Mental Health Service
20. Staff of the Mental Health Service
21. Application of the Pensions Law
22. Mental Health Review Committee
23. Functions of the Review Committee
24. Proceedings of the Review Committee
25. Members of the Review Committee
26. Discharge by the Review Committee
27. Review of Orders
28. Application for Review
29. Annual Report of the Review Committee
30. Voluntary Treatment at a Mental Health Facility
31. Admission of Voluntary patient
32. Notification of Admission, Death or Departure of a Voluntary Patient
33. Discharge of Voluntary Patient
34. Application for Short term Involuntary Admission and Treatment
35. Duration of Involuntary Admission
36. Short Term Treatment of Person without Capacity
37. Notification of Reception, Death or Departure of Involuntary Patient
38. Notice of Sudden Death of patient
39. Power to take Mentally Challenged Person into Custody
40. Certificate of urgency
41. Persons with Mental Disorder or Illness Found in Public Places
42. Warrant to Search and Remove Mentally Challenged Persons
43. Treatment Plan
44. Order for Long Term Treatment
45. Length of Long Term Treatment Order
46. Custody of Person under Admission
47. Non-Accredited Facilities and Involuntary Patients
48. Short Term Discharge of Involuntary Patient
49. Discharge of Involuntary Patient
50. Referred Patient who has been satisfactorily treated
51. Seclusion and Restraint
52. Non-discrimination
53. Incapacity and Human Rights
54. Standard of Treatment
55. Confidentiality
56. Access to Information
57. Privacy and Autonomy
58. Employment Rights
59. Female Patients
60. Children Receiving Treatment
61. Aged Patients
62. Persons with Mental Retardation
63. Protection of a Mentally Challenged Person
64. Appointment of a Guardian
65. Limited Guardianship
66. Review of Guardianship
67. Special Treatment
68. Psycho-Social Rehabilitation
69. Medical Social Workers
70. Provision of mental Health and Substance Abuse Services
71. Refusal to Supply Information
72. Sexual Relationship with a Patient
73. Offender with Mental Disorder
75. Accounts
76. Annual Estimates
77. Audit
78. Power to Accept Gifts, Donations, Grants and Endowment
79. Power to make Regulations
80. Repeal
81. Citation and Commencement
MENTAL HEALTH LAW
A LAW TO ESTABLISH THE LAGOS STATE MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE, TO PROVIDE FOR THE PROTECTION AND CARE OF THE MENTALLY CHALLENGED PERSON SUFFERING FROM SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND FOR CONNECTED PURPOSES.
[COMMENCEMENT (28TH JANUARY, 2019)]
THE LAGOS STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY enact as follows –
1. Interpretation
In this Law, unless the context otherwise requires –
“Care-giver” means a person who maintains a close personal relationship with a patient and manifests concern for the patient’s welfare;
“Certificate of Urgency” means a certificate issued by a medical practitioner for involuntary admission initiated by the police or a medical practitioner or medical social worker for an urgent or emergency case;
“Child” means a person under the age of eighteen (18) years;
“Commissioner” means the Commissioner for Health or a member of the State Executive Council charged with the responsibility for the management of the Health Sector in the State;
“Discharge” means an official release from hospital care or from a medical care facility by a physician or other medical care worker;
“Governor” means the Governor of Lagos State;
“Guardian” means someone legally appointed to take care of the interest of a mentally challenged person
“House” means the Lagos State House of Assembly;
“In-patient care” includes provision of quality housing, sanitation, food, lighting, beds, and essential medicines;
“Involuntary patient” means a person who is taken to a mental health facility for treatment without consent under a court order or certificate of urgency;
“irreversible treatment” means a medical or surgical treatment procedure which primarily results in a permanent anatomical change in the person;
“Least restrictive” means a regime of treating a mentally challenged person in a situation or environment where the freedom, association and choice of the person is minimally constrained;
“Legal/personal representative” means a substitute decision maker charged by law with the duty of representing a patient in any specified undertaking or of exercising specified rights on the patient’s behalf or a person appointed in writing by the patient to act on the patient’s behalf, provided that where the patient lacks mental capacity, or otherwise fails to appoint a legal representative in writing the legal representative shall be appointed to be in the following order –
(a) the spouse, if any, unless permanently separated from the patient or has deserted or has been deserted by the patient;
(b) son or daughter over the age of eighteen (18) years;
(c) either parent by mutual consent: and
(d) a person appointed by a Court to represent the patient unless restrictive option means offering an option for treatment or a setting for treatment which –
(i) meets the person’s treatment needs; and
(ii) imposes the least restriction on the person’s rights.
“Mental challenge” means any disease or condition affecting the brain that influences the way a person thinks, feels, behaves or relates to others and to his or her surroundings;
“Mentally challenged person” means a person with a condition of the mind in which there is a clinically significant disturbance of mental or behavior functioning associated with distress or interference of daily life and manifesting as disturbance of speech, perception, mood, thought, volition, orientation or other cognitive functions to such degree as to be considered pathological but excludes social deviance without personal dysfunction;
“Mental disability” means impairments, activity limitations, of an individual and participatory restrictions denoting dysfunctional aspects of interaction between an individual and the individual’s environment;
“Mental health” means a state of psychological and emotional well-being or a state of well-being in which every individual realises the individual’s own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community;
“Mental Health Professional” means any formally educated and trained mental health professional such as Psychiatrists, Clinical Psychologists, Medical Social Workers, Psychiatric Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Recreational Therapists, Medical Social Worker;
“Medical Social Workers” means trained advocates engaged in mental health promotion and services working with medical professionals;
“Mental ill-health” means mental or psychiatric disorder characterized by the existence of recognizable changes in the thoughts, feelings and general behavior of an individual brought about by neurological or psychosocial factors causing psychological, intellectual or social dysfunction;
“Mental or psychological incapacity” means the inability to –
(a) understand the information given concerning the nature of the disorder;
(b) understand the consequences the decisions and actions have for own life or health and for the life and health of others which may be serious and irreversible.
(c) understand that treatment might mitigate or remedy the condition and that lack of treatment might aggravate it;
(d) effectively communicate with others regarding the patient’s condition and his or her consent to treatment, its direct effects and its possible side effects;
(e) effectively communicate with others regarding the patient’s condition and his or her consent to treatment or hospitalization;
“Nearest relative” in relation to a patient includes a husband or wife, son or daughter, father or mother, brother or sister, grandparent or grandchild, uncle or aunt, nephew /niece, cousin or guardian;
“Patient” means a person receiving or utilizing mental health care and treatment from a mental health care facility or clinic;
“Psychiatrist” means an individual who is a specialist in psychiatry within the meaning of Medical and Dental Practitioners Act, Ch. M8, Vol. 8, LFN, 2004.
“Psychiatric emergencies” means conditions which may present a serious threat to a person’s well-being or that of others requiring immediate psychiatric interventions such as in cases of attempted suicide, acute intoxication, severe depression, acute psychosis, or violent behavior;
“Psychological problem” means a condition that indicates the existence of disturbance in the individual’s behavior, thoughts and feelings, brought about by sudden, extreme or long term stressors in the physical or social environment;
“Psycho surgery” means an irreversible surgical treatment for mentally challenged persons;
“Restraint” means immobilisation of an acutely disturbed person with a mental challenge often through physical measures for a limited period for purposes of preventing harm to the person or others for administration of medication or transfer to a place of seclusion or to another mental health facility;
“Service user” means a person who has received or is receiving mental health care;
“State” means Lagos State of Nigeria;
“Substance Abuse” means the habit of taking too many harmful drugs so that you are harmed by them” and
“Voluntary patient” means a person who goes to a mental health facility for treatment with or without referral.
LAWS OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
HIGH COURT OF THE FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY, ABUJA. PROCEDURAL STEPS
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