Results The proportion of urgent involuntary hospitalizations (Article 23) decreased in that period from 9.5 to 7.5% of the total number of admissions in mental hospitals, and from 8.5 to 6.5% in psychiatric wards of general hospitals. The ratio of involuntary admissions for psychiatric observation (Article 24) increased from 0.85 to 1.6% in mental hospitals, and in psychiatric wards from 0.8 t...

The Mental Health Act, 1987 came into force in 1993. Mental Health Authorities that were created by this Act are useful, but the present situation of not having Government Mental Hospitals under the scrutiny of these authorities is a shortcoming. The high capital needed for upgradation of Government mental hospitals; is likely to be found, only with the intervention of Mental Health Authorities...

THE isolation of the mental hospital, which was practically absolute before the Mental Treatment Act of 1930, is rapidly disappearing, and more and more psychiatric patients are being treated in the community instead of in the hospital. The hospital’s first link with the community was the outpatient department. Later liaison was gradually established with outside services such as probation depa...

The resource that I should like to discuss is the mental hospital. Since mental hospitals are not usually operated by the department of health and the admission and follow-up of discharged mental hospital patients are usually not functions of the health department, I will spend a few minutes describing the characteristics of the populations of these institutions. This discussion, I am sure, wil...

State hospitals were once the most prominent components of U.S. public mental health systems. But a major focus of mental health policy over the past fifty years has been to close these facilities. These efforts led to a 95 percent reduction in the country's state hospital population. However, more than 200 state hospitals remain open, serving a declining but challenging patient population. Usi...

In a previous paper, Dewhurst (in press) surveyed the incidence, course, and natural history of the neurosyphilitic psychoses by analysing the clinical histories of 91 patients whose illnesses necessitated their admission to mental hospitals between 1950 and 1965. Selection bias was avoided as only patients requiring treatment in mental hospitals were included. In spite of the advanced stage of...