Volume 7 Issue 6 June, 2017
Psychiatry & Law
The relationship, involvement and interference of law and medicine in each other is no new especially in modern Medicine and law. Ideally both are benevolent and non-maleficent where medicine offers cure and alleviation from pain & suffering while law provide justice for victims and penalize the offenders. Deviations from ideal are a rule rather than exception. Wherever there are gains (whether monitory or non-monetary) and weaknesses, there occurs a potential of exploitation and when both occurs at a single entity, the possibilities are much higher. Mental illness is one such potential area where the capacity of the sufferer may be compromised so that it may affect his self-care or ability to safeguard their dignity and rights. It is not long ago since the so called madness or insanity is regarded as illness and viewed in Medical models and there comes the law behind this very idea. At the inception, the purpose of law is very much to safeguard the rights of people with mentally ill and treat them with Dignity. But during the evolution, like any other law, laws regulating handling of mentally ill has seen innumerable criticisms and loopholes as well. Now a doctor treating mentally ill and particularly the psychiatrists have no option but to be informed about laws of the land. In the background of the new law called The Mental Health Care Act 2017 has been passed which is the 3rd such law in Indian subcontinent over the past century and 2nd in independent India, every practicing doctor is required to know about this. This issue of minds is dedicated for one such intention.
With this issue, we heartily welcome the new editorial team consisting of Dr. Sunil Kumar Patil and Dr. Aman Kishore. We wish them all the best in taking minds to new heights and horizons. We, the outgoing editors Dr. Gopal Das and Dr. Suravi Patra would thank all the contributors for supporting us during our journey with MINDS newsletter.
BMCH&RC, Chitradurga (Karnataka)
