KARACHI: Speakers at a seminar held to mark World Mental Health Day on Sunday urged Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah to put his signature on the rules and regulations of the Sindh Mental Health Act 2013, to allow the law passed over a year ago to be enforced in letter and spirit.

“The rules, regulations and forms have been lying with the Sindh government for more than four months just awaiting signature of the chief minister. The law can only be enforced if the rules, regulations and forms are passed,” said Dr Haroon Ahmed, president of the Pakistan Association for Mental Health while briefing the audience at the seminar held at the Jinnah Medical and Dental College.

The themes of the seminar were the Sindh Mental Health Act 2013 and ‘living with schizophrenia’. The session was presided over by retired Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid.

Sindh is the only province which effectively replaced the 100-year-old infamous Lunacy Act 1912 with its own law on mental health in September last year to streamline matters pertaining to the care of the mentally ill. Under the act, the government has also provided legal protection to properties of the mentally ill.

Dr Ahmed said the previous regime of retired Gen Pervez Musharraf had introduced an ordinance in 2001 to get rid of the Lunacy Act but it remained dormant for years. He informed the audience about the steps taken since 2001 to streamline that ordinance with the help of senior lawyers and judges.

Once the bylaws of the Mental Health Act have been approved, it will make for the formation of the Sindh Mental Health Authority, a Board of Visitors and assigning of a court to hear cases pertaining to the Act. Besides, psychiatric facilities will be established under the law to assess, admit, treat, rehabilitate and care the mentally challenged individuals.

Officials in the provincial health department and the medical practitioners alike expect the law to be promulgated ‘very soon’.

Retired Justice Zahid, an avid campaigner for the new law on the mentally challenged, said he hoped the law in Sindh would soon be applicable and similar and much improved laws would be enforced in other provinces as well.

Prof Iqbal Afridi of the JPMC, Dr Uzma Ambreen, Tabinda Afzal and Dr Anita Aijaz spoke on schizophrenia, ways to live with the ailment, psychiatric rehabilitation and responsible reporting.

In the second interactive session, the participants discussed stress, the most common metal ailment in the country in general and in Karachi in particular. At times, many participants could not control their emotions while recounting life threatening situations they had personally gone through.

Dr Ahmed recalled the list of stress-related behaviours, which was prepared in 2011 and called for change in identified behaviours. Psychiatric and psychological morbidity had increased due to reduced defence mechanism, he said, adding that targeted killing on sectarian grounds was a new phenomenon, besides issues related to political animosity and land-grabbing also added to stress.

The meeting was told that an increase in incidents of violence in the city had greatly reduced social attendance, especially at night. Besides, mobile snatching and daylight robberies had increased, which had weakened people’s faith in the law enforcement agencies.

Because of little faith in the ability of the LEAs in providing protection to citizens, people generally did not voluntarily identify anyone involved in an offence, said the participants.

Experts said that other behaviour changes included the declining number of people who drove a car while those who did drive generally did not keep important documents in the vehicle. People had also become acutely cautious specially while coming out of banks after drawing cash, they said.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2014