Human rights campaigners pin hopes on Lords to change racist Mental Health Bill

The Christian message is one of love but it’s also message of truth we have to make it clear that the Bill as drafted will be discriminatory unless CTO are removed.

Pastor Ade Omooba co- Coherent and Cohesive voice

Black Mental Health UK's, 11th hour meeting with Lord Hunt, church leaders and the Department of health officials late last week highlighted key concerns that if not addressed will lead to mental health laws that will wreak havoc in the Black communities, human rights groups have warned.

Plans to push ahead with the hugely controversial community treatment orders, which an independent study commissioned by the Government concluded do not positively assist patient’s recovery or reduce the risk to the public, have bolstered the consensus amongst human rights and church leaders these plans will lead to countless black people being made prisoners within their own homes. Calls are growing to see them ditched from the Bill in spite of the Department of Health assurances that they will not worsen the virulent racism within mental health services.

The discrimination principles do not go far enough there needs to be something on the face of the Bill which mentions race because unless it is mentioned it does not get the prominence it requires especially in it light of the routine discrimination black patients who come in contact with the services face.

Professor Suman Fernando

‘ The reality on the ground does not always match up to what the government says and years down the line the reality is often very different for us’ Pastor Ade Omooba co-founder of the Christian think tank Coherent and Cohesive voice said. ‘The Christian message is one of love but it’s also message of truth we have to make it clear that the Bill as drafted will be discriminatory unless CTO are removed’.

Despite efforts to sideline health experts concerns over these plans, when they warned the government nine months ago that CTO are discriminatory, these fears were confirmed in a highly publicised letter from the Commission for Racial Equality to Health Minister Rosie Winterton stating that forced community treatment along with widening definition of mental illness fly in the face of race relations law.

‘We stated from the outset that CTOs have no place in mental health legislation and cannot afford to move from this position given the extensive body of evidence that confirms that huge numbers of people from our community are routinely misdiagnosed, over medicated, forcibly restrained and placed in seclusion under the current Act, ’ Matilda MacAttram director of Black Mental Health UK said.

While amendments made to the Bill in the House of Commons have been welcomed experts are clear that further changes need to be made if the virulent racism within the service which has led the over representation of Black people within mental health service is to be addressed.

‘There is a need to have exclusions to the definition of mental illness for religious, political and cultural beliefs in the wording of the Bill’, professor Suman Fernando said. While welcoming the amendments made in the House of Commons last month, he said that they do not go far enough and will in no way address the widespread discrimination within mental health services, which has led to detention rates from people from African Caribbean communities soar. ‘The discrimination principles do not go far enough there needs to be something on the face of the Bill which mentions race because unless it is mentioned it does not get the prominence it requires especially in it light of the routine discrimination black patients who come in contact with the services face.’

Relentless campaigning and support from Shadow Health Minister Tim Lawton and Liberal Democrat Policy Lead Sandra Gidley, have led to a number of amendments to the Bill when it was debated in the House of Commons last month including the right to advocacy. While welcomed from many quarters, church leaders have warned that unless there is the legal right to an independent advocated trained in cultural competence before detention it will make little difference to widespread discrimination black patients have had to suffer under the 1983 Mental Health Act.

‘It is helpful to know that the Government are clear that we are calling for the legal right to an advocate before detention’ Pastor Ade Omooba commented after the meeting with Lord Hunt last week,

Along with other church leaders is keen to see a downturn in the figures that show that under current mental health laws people from African Caribbean people are 44% more likely to be detained that a British white person despite having similar rates of mental ill health.

‘It’s much more important to have an advocate before sectioning’, professor Fernando agreed.

‘There is too much sectioning and black people get labelled to quickly. Once you’re put on a section it’s very difficult to get out of it, the main thing is no not to avoid getting help but to avoid getting into the psychiatric system as it is often an impediment to getting help, so sectioning must be avoided. The statutory right to and advocate at the point of being considered for sectioning would address this,’ professor Suman Fernando added.

‘The Bill is currently drafted it will stop people from approaching the services. The failings of mental health services are well known in our communities. There is a needs for statutory measure to ensure the right assistance is available before or when sectioning is being considered. The statutory right to advocacy would address this.’ Pastor Desmond Hall chair of Christians Together in Brent said.

This article has been sent by BLINK (Black Information Link), website of the 1990 Trust.

Health body says "black people are naturally mad"

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RACE EXPERTS hit the roof after an institution claimed figures showing Black people 18 times more likely to be mentally ill was an "under-estimate".
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Mental health professionals are outraged after the Institute of Psychiatry concluded there was no evidence of racism.

A report by the body claimed Africans and Caribbeans suffer from even higher rates of schizophrenia than statistics suggest.

Lee Jasper, chair of the African Caribbean Mental Health Commission, rejected the findings. 'We are seeing racism on an industrial scale in the mental health service.

'When you look at the staggering disproportionality of representation within the service then I think there is no other credible explanation to this problem than institutional racism.'

denial

Professor Robin Murray from the Institute of Psychiatry has denied existence of racism in mental health for many years. Now he has released a report that fits his predetermined position.

Prof Murray's views have been regarded as controversial, but now he has gained support from Black and Asian professionals who are joining him in denying racism.

Dr Shibalade Smith, who works in the Maudsley hospital, and Professor Swaran Singh both back Prof Murray.

Their opinions are at odds with official figures that show police twice as likely to refer African Caribbeans to the mental health system.

African and Caribbean groups were also up to 70% less likely to be referred for counseling by their GP, and 14% more likely to be turned away than white people when they ask for help from Mental Health services.

The Count Me In study last year also found that 88% of Black respondents had been forcibly restrained as opposed to 43% of white respondents.

troubled

Despite these figures, the Institute of Psychiatry ruled out racism as a cause, and instead blamed absent fathers, cannabis use and a traumatic upbringing - all factors which they say disproportionately affect Black communities.

Prof Murray said that psychiatrists were less likely to diagnose Black people with mental illness because they were afraid of being branded "racist".

He also alleged that dangerous psychopaths like Christopher Clunis who killed Jayne Zito in 1992 - were being released into the community because health professionals wanted to reduce the numbers of Black patients. 

He said: 'Psychiatrists are less likely to diagnose psychosis in somebody who is Black than white with the same symptoms.'

He said the causes of mental illness were "unemployment, living in the city, [being] separated from parents", and believes migrant communities are naturally more prone to mental illness.

Dr Smith, whose patients are 77% Black, said she believed the causes were "poor schooling, troubled childhood [and] cannabis."

She said: 'There is no evidence Black patients are likely to get more medication. In fact you are twice as likely to get ECT [electric shock treatment] if you are white than if you are black.'

The Institute of Psychiatry base their findings on a series of "blind" tests where they presented images and imaginary case histories of black and white patients and asked professionals to make a diagnosis.

The findings are a major departure from thirty years of research which suggests that racial prejudices determine how professionals treat Black people with suspected mental disorders.

In 2004 a public inquiry led by former high court judge Sir John Blofeld found that David 'Rocky' Bennett had died of restraint in a psychiatric unit because of institutional racism.

BBC Newsnights' Mark Easton publicised the Institute of Psychiatry research earlier this week but failed to offer any critical analysis of the study, accepting the results on face value.

Tell us what you think. Email: editor@blink.org.uk

David Bennett spent the last years of his life at the Norvic Clinic

The government has published its response to the inquiry into the death of David "Rocky" Bennett at a secure mental health unit in Norfolk in 1998.

The inquiry said there was "institutional racism" in NHS mental health services.

The government has now pledged to address the inequalities black and ethic minorities have faced in the provision of mental health care.

For 18 years David Bennett, Rocky to family and friends, was in and out of hospitals with mental health problems.

During the last years of his life he was at the Norvic Clinic in Norwich.

'Unfairly punished'

On the night he died, according to a draft copy of the report seen by the BBC at the time, Mr Bennett had been racially abused by another patient after a heated argument.

He was ordered to another ward while nothing happened to the man who abused him.

When I rang the A&E department the staff nurse said to me 'did you realise that there's been a violent incident' - that was the first time I realised that Rocky had not just died from a breathing problem Dr Joanna Bennett

The subsequent independent inquiry into his death heard that Mr Bennett felt he was being unfairly punished.

Mr Bennett then attacked and seriously injured a nurse.

Between four and five nursing staff restrained him face down, sitting on his legs and across his upper torso for almost 25 minutes.

His family was informed of his death by the police the following morning.

His sister Joanna Bennett says she was told by the Norvic Clinic that her brother had developed breathing problems in the night and that he had been sent to the A&E department where he had subsequently died.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme at the time: "When I rang the A&E department the staff nurse said to me 'did you realise that there's been a violent incident'?

"That was the first time I realised that Rocky had not just died from a breathing problem that, in fact, he had been restrained by nurses.

Dr Bennett says her brother was treated as a "lesser being" on the night he died.

'No record'

The BBC has obtained a copy of the draft report of the eventual inquiry into Mr Bennett's death.

It confirms his sister's assertion that there was no record of any action taken as a result of either the assault, or racial abuse, against her brother.

The general impression throughout this lengthy period is of a man who was at times treated...as if he was a nuisance who had to be contained Inquiry draft report

It is scathing of Mr Bennett's treatment as a black man with more than 18 years in the mental health service.

The report says that at times Mr Bennett was treated "as if he was a nuisance who had to be contained."

Nursing staff at the Norvic clinic were criticised for not having someone at Mr Bennett's head as he was being restrained.

The report goes on: "If that had been done we consider that signs of distress would have been detected earlier than they were and that there was a real possibility that this death might never have occurred.

"There is no evidence of deliberate misbehaviour by any of the nurses involved."

'Lesser being'

The report says "the issue of race was not taken into account" when the decision to move Mr Bennett to another ward was taken.

It continues: "We form the strong impression that on that evening David Bennett was not treated by nurses as if he was capable of being talked to like a rational human being but was treated as if he was a lesser being, to use Dr Bennett's phrase."

Following the publication of the full report, Norfolk Mental Health Care NHS Trust apologised to Mr Bennett's family and friends, adding that it had "not forgotten that this was a tragedy that happened to a real person".