New South Wales Consolidated Acts

MENTAL HEALTH ACT 2007 - SECT 38

38 Purpose and findings of reviews of involuntary patients

(1) The Tribunal is, on a review of an involuntary patient, to determine whether the patient is a mentally ill person for whom no other care (other than care in a mental health facility) is appropriate and reasonably available.

(2) For that purpose, the Tribunal is to do the following:

(a) consider any information before it,

(b) inquire about the administration of any medication to the patient and take account of its effect on the patient’s ability to communicate.

(3) If the Tribunal determines that the patient is not a mentally ill person, the patient must be discharged from the mental health facility in which the patient is detained.

(4) If the Tribunal determines that the patient is a mentally ill person and that no other care of a less restrictive kind is appropriate and reasonably available to the patient, the Tribunal must make an order that the patient continue to be detained as an involuntary patient in a mental health facility for further observation or treatment, or both.

(5) In any other case that the Tribunal determines that a patient is a mentally ill person, it must make an order that the patient be discharged from the mental health facility in which the patient is detained and may make a community treatment order.

(6) The Tribunal may defer the operation of an order for the discharge of a patient for a period of up to 14 days, if the Tribunal thinks it is in the best interests of the patient to do so.

(7) An order made by the Tribunal under this section is to be in the form approved by the President.