Context: Recently, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Centre and the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India on a plea seeking directions to insurance companies to provide coverage for treatment of mental health illnesses.
Key Points

• The plea contended that under the Section 21(4) of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, insurers are bound to provide medical insurance for mental health illnesses on the same basis as they do for treatment of physical illness.
• However, despite the existence of the provision, there has been no follow-up by the insurance regulatory body regarding its compliance nor has any action been taken against companies who failed to follow the order.
• The inclusion of mental illnesses under the insurance coverage is a result of the Centre’s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Mental Healthcare Act, 2017

• The new act defines mental illness as a substantial disorder of thinking, mood, perception, orientation, or memory that grossly impairs judgment or ability to meet the ordinary demands of life, mental conditions associated with the abuse of alcohol and drugs.

Rights of persons with mental illness:

• The Act that ensures every person shall have a right to access mental health care and treatment from mental health services run or funded by the appropriate government.
• It assures free treatment for such persons if they are homeless or belong to Below Poverty Line, even if they do not possess a BPL card.
• Every person with mental illness shall have a right to live with dignity and there shall be no discrimination on any basis including gender, sex, sexual orientation, religion, culture, caste, social or political beliefs, class or disability.
• A person with mental illness shall have the right to confidentiality in respect of his mental health, mental healthcare, treatment and physical healthcare.
• The photograph or any other information pertaining to the person cannot be released to the media without the consent of the person with mental illness.

About Mental Health Authority

• The Act empowers the government to set-up Central Mental Health Authority at national-level and State Mental Health Authority in every State.
• Every mental health institute and mental health practitioners including clinical psychologists, mental health nurses and psychiatric social workers will have to be registered with this Authority.

Functions:
These bodies will-

• register, supervise and maintain a register of all mental health establishments.
• develop quality and service provision norms for such establishments.
• maintain a register of mental health professionals.
• train law enforcement officials and mental health professionals on the provisions of the Act.
• receive complaints about deficiencies in provision of services.
• advise the government on matters relating to mental health.

A Mental Health Review Board is constituted to protect the rights of persons with mental illness and manage advance directives.
Suicide is decriminalized

• A person who attempts suicide shall be presumed to be suffering from mental illness at that time and will not be punished under the Indian Penal Code.
• The government shall have a duty to provide care, treatment and rehabilitation to a person, having severe stress and who attempted to commit suicide, to reduce the risk of recurrence of attempt to commit suicide.