Sindh has leaped ahead of the other three provinces in terms of mental health legislation. The provincial assembly passed the Sindh Mental Health Act 2013 on 19 September, replacing the Lunacy Act 1912.
Before that the only piece of sobering legislation on the issue came in the form of the Mental Health Ordinance 2001 (MHO 2001) which was passed during the tenure of president Pervez Musharraf.
In 2007, the Pakistan Association for Mental Health (PAMH) filed a petition before Sindh High Court which ordered the government to reconstitute the Federal Mental Health Authority (FMHO). This was done in order to take measures to work on improving and implementing the MHO 2001. However, the FMHO was dissolved and the MHO stood scrapped after the 18th Amendment.
While Sindh’s persistence and inclination to improve the situation has resulted in the aforementioned act, the other provinces did not show much interest. The country’s populous Punjab province didn’t bother to make amendments in the MHO 2001 – which has serious issues. “The Punjab provincial government doesn’t seem interested,” believes Prof S. Haroon Ahmed, the president of the PAMH and the man behind Sindh’s new Act. Prof Ahmed added that his organisation has sent amendments [in MHO 2001] for the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government. “Let’s see what they do. Sindh is the only province which has a mental health law,” he added.
The Sindh chief minister has recently approved the new Act’s rules, but the law department that has other priorities on top, is delaying the law’s implementation in letter and spirit. Though the bill was passed about 13 months ago, the law department has not finalised the rules as yet. “We are expecting the notification by Saturday,” hopes Prof Ahmed.
The health experts and even the officials believe that the implementation is not an easy task. “The [legislative] act is new and being implemented for the first time. It is certainly a technical task but we have almost done it,” an official of the Sindh Health Department said, talking to The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity. “We have completed it technically.”
According to it, the Sindh Mental Health Authority and a Board of Visitors will be constituted, while psychiatric facilities will be established for the assessment, admission, treatment, rehabilitation, care and aftercare of mentally disturbed patients.
“If the rules can take a year, one can imagine the time it will take for the implementation,” said the official. He smiled when asked about the seriousness of the government in this matter.
“The major mental illness prevalent in Pakistan is of depression,” said Prof Ahmed. Ironically, Pakistan has only over 500 psychiatrists and they live and provide healthcare facilities to patients only in major cities, like Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad, Quetta and Hyderabad. “We are providing trainings and sending trained doctors to small cities,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 10th, 2014.
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This is the dire need for the current Parliament.I suppose process has already commenced at D Chow.