Accusing them of infringing on his freedom, a mental patient's lawsuit against a psychiatric ward and his brother highlights the difficulty rehabilitated mental patients face in returning to normal life. The issue underlies the lack of legal clarity in China's Mental Health Law, the absence of any kind of outpatient care to support discharged patients, and the stigma that surrounds these patients and their families.
"First, let me talk about why I want to leave the psychiatric ward so badly. There's no freedom there. Even if there's a square or a room for you to walk around in, there's just no freedom."
In Shanghai , 49-year-old mental patient Xu Wei (pseudonym) went on to make his closing arguments with logical clarity in Minhang district court one day this July, almost without a stammer, explaining why he thinks he is capable of leaving the mental hospital and starting his life again. He talked about his good temper, his willingness to work and the government unemployment and disability allowance which he argued is enough to support a basic lifestyle. He also talked about his girlfriend, a discharged fellow patient, who planned to live and start a new life with him.
Xu is dark, tall, skinny, and has lost one of his front teeth. He speaks quickly and clearly - you might even call him loquacious - and does not show any overt signs of mental illness except when he talks about occasionally feeling as if he is being followed.
He has been confined in a mental hospital for 12 years, and although an evaluation by the Shanghai Mental Health Center shows that Xu "has basically recovered from his mental illnesses" and should be set free, his custodian, his older brother, refused to authorize the hospital to discharge him.
Despite support from the media and academics, the court ruled against Xu in September. Xu's dream of leaving what he calls "the cage" was dashed.
Shattered hope
Xu is just one of thousands of rehabilitated mental patients in China that are stuck in psychiatric wards, unable to return to normal life due to the wishes of their family members.
In 2012, China passed its first Mental Health Law aimed at preventing people from being involuntarily held in psychiatric facilities. The law also gives people who feel they have been unnecessarily admitted into mental health facilities the right to appeal.
However, the law is unclear about whether people who were sent into mental hospitals by their families can leave hospitals of their own free will. Currently, hospitals still require their family members' or custodians' approval to discharge them, and many patients' relatives refuse to consent.
Among the 300 in-house patients living at the Haidian District Mental Health Prevention and Treatment Hospital in 2013, for example, 150 met the medical requirements necessary for discharge but couldn't go home. Among the over 300 patients in Fuzhou's Psychiatric Sanatorium, over 150 have recovered but their family or custodians are not willing authorize their discharge. Ye Xiaodan, director of the Wenzhou of Kangning Hospital, a private mental hospital, told Phoenix Weekly that over half of his patients' relatives are reluctant to take them home.
In 2001, Xu, aged 34 at the time, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and lack of insight after his father and brother sent him for examination in a mental hospital. Before that, he had lived in Australia for 11 years, where he studied, worked and later developed an addiction to gambling, which cost him his job and all his savings, totaling over 1 million yuan ($157,000).
The Australian government didn't renew his visa and repatriated him back to China. He was broke and desperate, consumed by his losses and his anger at his visa application being rejected. After seeing that he was showing symptoms of hallucinations, his father decided to send him for a mental evaluation. He was then institutionalized.
In 2008, Xu's father died. According to the law, Xu's brother then became his custodian. He visited Xu during Spring Festival for a few years, but stopped coming in recent years. He also refused Xu's request to leave hospital, fearing that he would become a liability.
Although the Mental Health Law doesn't actually require hospitals to obtain the authorization of patients' custodians to discharge them, this has become an unwritten code. The underlying logic is that mentally ill people cannot control their own behavior, and only their custodians have the right to do so.
Xu had thought of suicide, but after he met his girlfriend, he wanted to take matters into his own hands. In 2011, the two launched a failed escape attempt in which they managed to get out of the ward and run to a train station. But they turned themselves in when they saw a doctor and a nurse hurrying to the station to find them.
On May 16, 2013, Xu filed a lawsuit against the psychiatric ward and his older brother, accusing them of infringing on his personal freedom. That was the first case filed involving a mental patient as the plaintiff after the Mental Health Law took effect. The case spanned two years - he had to wait seven months before the court decided to hear the case. The court then asked him to prove that he was mentally capable to undergo litigation. That took him another six months. Xu's failure means he might never be able to leave hospital under the current law.
