Joint WHO/UN statement, issued on June 28, 2017 calls upon all stakeholders to help the UN take actions against discrimination in healthcare, including by changing legislation and policies. "Laws and policies must respect the principles of autonomy in health care decision-making; guarantee free and informed consent, privacy and confidentiality;... and ban involuntary treatment...", the Statement says. It names among the major goals "Empowering users of...

Biased reporting example: a study claims that children with ADHD have smaller brains and forgets to highlight the higher IQ scores. Information about the IQ of childen with ADHD can be found only in the appendix of the study, not available in the free version. Media immediately published the news with the headlines "Study Finds Brains of ADHD Sufferers Are Smaller" (Newsweek), "Brains of those...

Compulsory admission rates are linked to ethnicity and poverty, the Lancet Psychiatry says. Compulsory admission rates are higher in "more deprived regions" and 3 times higher for black people than for white. The article is available here.

A petition was initiated by one of ENUSP members in Norway. The aim of the petition is to urge Norway  immediately discontinue practices of forced treatment/hospitalization and reform laws allowing for deprivation of liberty and forced treatment on the basis of disabilities by replacing these practices with services that meet needs expressed by persons with disabilities and respect the autonomy, choices, dignity and privacy. Text of...

Gellinudd Recovery Centre-the UK’s first inpatient mental health centre to be designed by service users and their carers opened in Wales in April 2017. Unfortunately the service cannot be copied elsewhere easily due to lack of funding for evaluation. It's interesting, how money is always enough for usual institutions, and how there is a lack of money for services designed by users themselves, even in...

Despite of the negative feedback received from INGOs the Bioethics Committee decided to proceed with the Additional protocol to the Oviedo Convention, which will legitimize forced measures against people with "mental disorder". Our representative, Jolijn Santegoeds, attended the plenary meeting of the Commitee on Bioethics, held on June 8 in Strasbourg and presented our position. Among other things she pointed out that first resorts must...

ENUSP is making an urgent call for donations to get our voice heard At the upcoming Plenary Session of the Council of Europe Intergovernmental Committee on Bioethics (DH-BIO), 7th June - Council of Europe - Strasbourg, the Draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention will be discussed, which is fully named: “Draft Additional Protocol to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine concerning the protection...

Our ally, Mental Health Europe, is currently updating and expanding the Mapping Exclusion Report which was published in 2012. As part of  this revision, a section entitled ‘Understanding Exclusion’ will give the perspective of persons with lived experience of institutionalisation, forced placement and treatment and seclusion and restraint. The survey and information sheet can be found here: http://www.mhe-sme.org/projects/mapping-exclusion/. The online submission form is very simple,...

On May 8, 2017 the 1st Mental Health Congress was held in Warsaw. According to the report of our individual member, Prof. Dr Tadeusz Trocikowski the Congress was attended by over 500 participants. It was organized under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Poland, Minister of Health and many other stakeholders interested in Mental Health. The main topic of the Congress was...

This report was written by Jolijn Santegoeds, Founder of Stitching Mind Rights and organizer of the protest. Edited by Stephanie Wooley. Protest in Utrecht on 6 May 2017 A protest march against coercion in psychiatry was held in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands, on Saturday afternoon, 6 May 2017. The protest was organized by Mind Rights, Enik Recovery College and Mad Pride Nederland. A...