Discharge law traps many healthy people in Chinese mental hospitals, experts say

After a quarrel with his father more than 10 years ago, Xu Wei found himself in the Qingchun Psychiatric Rehabilitation Hospital in Shanghai.

Upon meeting Xu, it becomes clear he is sane. An evaluation two years ago found he suffered from minor schizophrenia, and the condition was so mild he could safely be treated at home. But the hospital refuses to release him without the consent of his legal guardian, which is now his brother after his father died.

"The hospital insists my brother should pick me up and said I am not able to deal with the discharge procedures. But in fact I can do all these things," Xu told the Sunday Morning Post.

Last year, the mainland passed a mental-health law aimed at preventing a person from being wrongfully locked up on a psychiatric ward. But for people already inside the system who should be released - who desperately want to get out - the law offers little help.

"Since the law was promulgated, involuntary hospital admissions have become almost impossible, except in cases where the patients are seriously mentally disturbed," said Dr Xie Bin , vice-president of Shanghai Mental Health Centre. But he admits that problems in hospital discharging have become "prominent".

The law now details procedures for hospital admission but says little about the discharge process, except that patients unable to handle it themselves require their guardian's consent.

Xie said that in many cases after psychiatric hospitals informed guardians that patients could be released, they didn't show up. Patients ended up staying unnecessarily, sometimes for 10 years or more.