HEALTH
‘Jail-like horror’ for thousands of autistic patients
Leo Andrade said her son Stephen was kept in a unit that was worse than a prison
Thousands of people with autism or learning disabilities are being held in mental health units, campaigners say, with many sedated or subjected to restraint, isolation and abuse.
Despite pledges to end the practice, some individuals have been inpatients for years, and are kept far from their families. The campaigners say it is a human rights scandal.
People with autism or learning disabilities who are experiencing a crisis can be sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983 even if they do not have a mental illness. As a result hundreds of people are held in secure units that are like prisons, the campaigners say. People who are sectioned can be held in any mental health hospital that has a bed, sometimes hundreds of miles from home.
