The UK government plans to rush through measures allowing people
with
suspected mental health issues to be quickly detained because of fears
over staff shortages in any forthcoming swine flu outbreak, it has been
revealed. The changes to the Mental Health Act, as laid out in an
unusually short consultation lasting just one month, would mean it
would only take one doctor, rather than two, to have a person sectioned
and put on medication without their consent. The measures could have a
serious effect on the thousands of patients who currently live outside
state care, meaning many could be detained against their will on the
word of just one health professional. Is it right that swine flu should
affect health regulations? Absolutely not, especially if these
authorities redefine 'mental illness' to include being opposed to the
government's official stories about the swine flu. Tyranny, fascism and
eugenicism in action. Editorial, Management in Practice