Does the American mental health system stand the test of a human rights framework? A Conversation with Dr. Soumitra Pathare

Soumitra Pathare trained as a psychiatrist at Seth G S Medical College & KEM Hospital Mumbai and St Thomas’ Hospital, London. He has a doctoral degree from VU University, Amsterdam and is a Member of The Royal College of Psychiatrists, United Kingdom.     Dr. Pathare is based in Pune, India and is the director of the Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy at the Indian Law Society.  His main area of work concentrates on mental health policy, legislation and human rights. Soumitra has worked as a consultant to many countries reforming their mental health policies and laws. As will be described in this interview, Dr. Pathare has been affiliated with the World Health Organization’s commitment to equip and train mental health practitioners throughout the world about the importance of human rights.In this interview, Dr. Pathare will help to make the distinction between “civil or constitutional rights” and “human rights.”  In essence, human rights are those afforded all people. They are universal and inviolable and not dependent upon the country in which you live.    He will walk us through the establishment of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and how, over the decades, there have been “elaborations” of that initial effort to focus on particular human needs (e.g., rights of children, rights of women, elimination of racism and discrimination, etc.).  It was only recently (2006), that the UN promoted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) which is a landmark human rights treaty among countries around the world to protect the fundamental rights of all persons with disabilities.The World Health Organization (WHO) has created global initiative, called Quality Rights to transform the way mental health care is delivered and to change attitudes toward people with psychosocial, intellectual, and cognitive disabilities.  Their goal is to have all the countries in the world implement QR by 2030, but  the US hasn’t even ratified the CPRD. Dr. Pathare will talk about how Quality Rights represents a movement away from a bio-medical approach to mental illness to a recovery approach which values the ability of people to make choices.  Further it is a movement away from a definition of wellness that is defined by “symptom reduction”  toward the ability to fully participate in community. Links to the studies discussed in the interviewAssertive community treatment for the severely mentally ill in West LambethTom Craig and Soumitra Pathare, Advances in Psychiatric Treatment (1997) vol 3, pp. 111-118.Public Education for Community Care:  A New Approach.The British journal of psychiatry:  the journal of medical science.  May 1996.  Pp. 441 – 447.Soumitra Pathare, Julian Leff, Geoffrey Wolff, Thomas K J Craig