18Right to access mental healthcare

(1) Every person shall have a right to access mental healthcare and treatment from mental health services run or funded by the appropriate Government.

(2) The right to access mental healthcare and treatment shall mean mental health services of affordable cost, of good quality, available in sufficient quantity, accessible geographically, without discrimination on the basis of gender, sex, sexual orientation, religion, culture, caste, social or political beliefs, class, disability or any other basis and provided in a manner that is acceptable to persons with mental illness and their families and care-givers.

(3) The appropriate Government shall make sufficient provision as may be necessary, for a range of services required by persons with mental illness.

(4) Without prejudice to the generality of range of services under sub-section (3), such services shall include—

(a) provision of acute mental healthcare services such as outpatient and inpatient services;

(b) provision of half-way homes, sheltered accommodation, supported accommodation as may be prescribed;

(c) provision for mental health services to support family of person with mental illness or home based rehabilitation;

(d) hospital and community based rehabilitation establishments and services as may be prescribed;

(e) provision for child mental health services and old age mental health services.

(5) The appropriate Government shall,—

(a) integrate mental health services into general healthcare services at all levels of healthcare including primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare and in all health programmes run by the appropriate Government;

(b) provide treatment in a manner, which supports persons with mental illness to live in the community and with their families;

(c) ensure that the long term care in a mental health establishment for treatment of mental illness shall be used only in exceptional circumstances, for as short a duration as possible, and only as a last resort when appropriate community based treatment has been tried and shown to have failed;

(d) ensure that no person with mental illness (including children and older persons) shall be required to travel long distances to access mental health services and such services shall be available close to a place where a person with mental illness resides;

(e) ensure that as a minimum, mental health services run or funded by Government shall be available in each district;

(f) ensure, if minimum mental health services specified under sub-clause (e) of sub-section are not available in the district where a person with mental illness resides, that the person with mental illness is entitled to access any other mental health service in the district and the costs of treatment at such establishments in that district will be borne by the appropriate Government:

Provided that till such time the services under this sub-section are made available in a health establishment run or funded by the appropriate Government, the appropriate Government shall make rules regarding reimbursement of costs of treatment at such mental health establishment.

(6) The appropriate Government shall make available a range of appropriate mental health services specified under sub-section (4) of section 18 at all general hospitals run or funded by such Government and basic and emergency mental healthcare services shall be available at all community health centres and upwards in the public health system run or funded by such Government.

(7) Persons with mental illness living below the poverty line whether or not in possession of a below poverty line card, or who are destitute or homeless shall be entitled to mental health treatment and services free of any charge and at no financial cost at all mental health establishments run or funded by the appropriate Government and at other mental health establishments designated by it.

(8) The appropriate Government shall ensure that the mental health services shall be of equal quality to other general health services and no discrimination be made in quality of services provided to persons with mental illness.

(9) The minimum quality standards of mental health services shall be as specified by regulations made by the State Authority.

(10) Without prejudice to the generality of range of services under sub-section (3) of section 18, the appropriate Government shall notify Essential Drug List and all medicines on the Essential Drug List shall be made available free of cost to all persons with mental illness at all times at health establishments run or funded by the appropriate Government starting from Community Health Centres and upwards in the public health system:

Provided that where the health professional of ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha, homoeopathy or naturopathy systems recognised by the Central Government are available in any health establishment, the essential medicines from any similar list relating to the appropriate ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha, homoeopathy or naturopathy systems shall also be made available free of cost to all persons with mental illness.

(11) The appropriate Government shall take measures to ensure that necessary budgetary provisions in terms of adequacy, priority, progress and equity are made for effective implementation of the provisions of this section.

Explanation.—For the purposes of sub-section (11), the expressions—

(i) "adequacy" means in terms of how much is enough to offset inflation;

(ii) "priority" means in terms of compared to other budget heads;

(iii) "equity" means in terms of fair allocation of resources taking into account the health, social and economic burden of mental illness on individuals, their families and care-givers;

(iv) "progress" means in terms of indicating an improvement in the State's response.