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Community Treatment Orders in Victoria, Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Paul Dedman
Paul Dedman*
Affiliation:
Community Assessment and Treatment Team, Royal Park Hospital, Parkville 3052, Victoria, Australia
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It is one of the failures of contemporary psychiatry that many patients who respond well to neuroleptic medication given to them when they are in-patients relapse after discharge due to not taking any further medication. Those working closely with the acute psychiatric patient in the community are often forced to stand by powerlessly as a patient deteriorates, causing damage to himself and his social milieu until such a point is reached when he is again ill enough to warrant compulsory admission and treatment. This process is, of course, devastating for a patient's family and also disheartening for professionals involved, and is perhaps partly responsible for the high turnover of staff involved in front line services. Even if assertive outreach methods are employed such as those involved in a number of comprehensive community-based programmes (Stein & Test, 1980; Borland et al, 1989) so that contact with the patient is not lost, it is not possible without the necessary legislation to enforce treatment in the community.

Type
Articles
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 14 , Issue 8 , August 1990 , pp. 462 - 464
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990

References

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