China's new mental health law, adopted on Friday, is expected to protect the rights of mentally ill people, reduce abuse and raise public awareness of mental disorders.

The Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress approved the bill at its bi-monthly session, which ran from Tuesday to Friday, after three readings.

Under the new law, there should be no infringements upon the dignity, personal safety or the property of mentally ill people.

The law also stipulates that institutions and individuals should protect the privacy of mentally ill people by preventing leaks of private information, such as their names, addresses and employment status, unless the sharing of such data is necessary for institutions and individuals while exercising their lawful duties.

China currently has about 16 million people suffering from severe mental disorders, according to the Ministry of Health.

Wrongly institutionalized

The law has attracted great public attention since the draft was first submitted for discussion last October, largely due to increasing reports of incidents in which people were wrongly institutionalized.

On Oct. 10, or World Mental Health Day, four people who claim to have been wrongly institutionalized sent written pleas to hospitals and courts across China, demanding fairer diagnoses of mental diseases and greater scrutiny of patients' custodians.

Among them was Chen Guoming, a former gold store owner, who was forced into an asylum in February 2011 by his wife and locked up for 56 days after refusing to lend money to his wife's family at their request.

When he was released, he found his wife had transferred nearly 800,000 yuan (126,182 U.S. dollars) from his account and taken all of the jewelry in his store. His losses totaled 6 million yuan.

The law is expected to curb abuses regarding compulsory mental health treatment and protect citizens from undergoing unnecessary treatment or illegal hospitalization.

The law bans mental health examinations on a citizen against his or her own will. However, if a person suffering suspected mental illness poses a danger to himself or herself, or to others, close relatives, an employer or local police authorities may send him or her to a hospital at once for a diagnosis, it says.

Under the law, every mental illness diagnosis should be made by a qualified psychiatrist.

Mentally ill people shall receive inpatient treatment on a voluntary basis, except those who are diagnosed with a severe mental illness and have the potential to harm themselves or others.

Patients and their relatives can request a second diagnosis on their condition and, if they still disagree with the diagnosis, they can turn to any qualified medical institution for verification, according to the law.

Wang Shaoli, deputy head of the Beijing Huilongguan Hospital, a leading psychiatric hospital, told Xinhua that the law clarifies several rules regarding who is able to send potentially mentally ill people for diagnosis and how to settle a dispute over their condition. As such, it will no doubt help prevent abuse.

"However, it is impossible for the law alone to eliminate malpractice regarding hospitalization," he said. "Besides the law, we need well-designed medical protocols and strict implementation of laws and protocols."

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