A Tasmanian tribunal has agreed that a man was held in a state hospital against his will without an appropriate order over the Christmas break last year.
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The 79-year-old man applied with the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal earlier this year to have his mental health order reviewed, claiming that he had been "illegally detained" against his will within a Tasmanian hospital.
The tribunal heard that the man presented at an emergency department on December 24 with a complaint about back pain, but was found to be manic by treating doctors.
The first application for a treatment order was determined to be invalid by a single-member tribunal as it was not correctly completed and so too was a second treatment order application.
A third application was approved and a interim treatment order was issued on December 29.
"Only the third application resulted in the tribunal initially making an interim treatment order for 10 days, and subsequently making a treatment order for six months," a recent TASCAT finding on the matter read.
The tribunal received two applications from the man, identified as SBC, to review the treatment order made on January 5.
"We put the proposition to all participants to the hearing that on the documentation before us, it seems that at the very least there had been some intervals of time whilst SBC had been an inpatient he had been detained and treated as an involuntary patient when there was not valid authority to do so in place," the tribunal concluded.
"No one disagreed with this proposition."
The tribunal in its decision recommended that educational training and resources as to the requirements for the making of a valid assessment order and applications for treatment orders be provided to Tasmanian Health Service medical practitioners and legal order co-ordinators.