The Supreme Court has said an "undesirable" feature of the 1945 Mental Treatment Act is its discrimination between public and private patients. The court expressed the hope there would be no delay in enacting new legislation.
Ms Justice McGuinness made the comment when delivering the court's decision dismissing a man's appeal against the High Court's refusal to order his release from St Otteran's psychiatric hospital, Waterford. She found the court faced "an unsatisfactory situation" because it had to "imply" the Act allowed a psychiatric hospital to detain a "voluntary" patient, thought to be a danger to himself and others. She said another undesirable feature of the Act was that public patients, unlike private, were not entitled to a second medical opinion.
The court accepted the authorities at St Otteran's had acted in the best interests of the man who, after he was arrested for an alleged assault, told gardai he was hearing voices in his head, that aliens were coming to visit him and green blood was pouring from his veins.
He had signed himself in as a voluntary patient but later gave written notice that he wished to be discharged. The hospital authorities decided he was not fit to be discharged. He has been in St Otteran's since. It was hardly likely that the Oireachtas intended "voluntary" patients to be discharged into the community, possibly without treatment, when others suffering the same degree of illness could be protected by having their illness treated.
Ms Justice McGuinness said the case illustrated the weaknesses in the legislation. The court had to infer that hospital authorities could make a reception order in the case of a voluntary patient who, contrary to his own medical interests, gave notice of discharge. That was not satisfactory.