Global

USA - Report on Torture of Children with Disabilities

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) released this past week a report on the torture of children with disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center in the United States. In the Report, titled "Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center", MDRI  documents the use of electric shocks on the legs, arms, bodies, and soles of feet of people with disabilities - for weeks, months and sometimes years. To read Report in PDF only, go to http://www.mdri.org/PDFs/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf

Mental Health Crisis in Greece

Latest reports from the BBC on the appalling conditions in the Greek Mental Health System

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8124976.stm

We are informed by our international colleagues of the deteriorating situation and appalling conditions in the mental health services in Greece. After shocking revelations about the Leros Asylum were made public in the 1980’s the international outcry produced funding to reform the system from the European Union. Some hospitals closed and some community services developed. However over the past three years Government funding to these has slowed and stopped, staff are not being paid, the services can’t meet their expenses and the quality is deteriorating. The feared outcome is that the institutions will reopen. 

In late January 2009 the European Union held a meeting to discuss the deteriorating situation in Greece the  notes of that meeting make shocking reading from the relative comfort of New Zealand.

A blog translated into English provides detail of the situation. http://psi-action-en.blogspot.com/

England

NMHDU, launched in April 2009, consists of a small central team and a range of programmes funded by both the Department of Health and the NHS. It provides national support for implementing mental health policy by advising on national and international best practice to improve mental health and mental health services.

NMHDU does this by commissioning or providing:

• Specialist expertise in priority areas of policy and delivery

• Effective knowledge transfer on research, evidence and good practice

• Translation of national policies into practical deliverables that achieve outcomes

• Coordination of national activity to help regional and local implementation.

NMHDU’s work is being developed through co-production between DH and the ten Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs), and strategic partnerships with other groups such as the

The new body takes over some of the national activities previously carried out by the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) while the SHAs will incorporate the resources of the former NIMHE Regional Development Centres to support regional and local delivery.

NHS Confederation, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and the major mental health third sector organisations.

Check out more at the NMHDU Website