The right to mental health 2017, para. 58

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Paragraph text: Mental health services must be respectful of medical ethics and human rights, as well as culturally appropriate, sensitive to gender and life-cycle requirements and designed to respect confidentiality and empower individuals to control their health and well-being. They must respect the principles of medical ethics and human rights (including “first, do no harm”), choice, control, autonomy, will, preference and dignity. Overreliance on pharmacological interventions, coercive approaches and in-patient treatment is inconsistent with the principle of doing no harm, as well as with human rights. Human rights capacity-building should be routinely provided to mental health professionals. Services must be culturally appropriate and acceptable to persons with intellectual, cognitive or psychosocial disabilities and with autism, adolescents, women, older persons, indigenous persons, minorities, refugees and migrants, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons. Many within those populations are needlessly medicalized and suffer from coercive practices, based on inappropriate and harmful gender stereotypes.

Body: Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health

Topic(s)

Person(s) affected