The team at Health Justice have analyzed information received from a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the use of seclusion and restraint for people who are admitted to hospital against their will (“involuntarily admitted”) under the Mental Health Act. Some of what they found is:

• Data on seclusion and restraint was not reliably collected prior to 2020/2021
• The data that is collected is limited, and we are therefore missing valuable information about who experiences seclusion and restraint, how often, and for how long
• Despite those limitations, we know that at least 14,788 involuntary admissions from 2020-2022 included the use of restraint or seclusion and 1 in every 4 people who are involuntarily admitted experienced the use of restraint or seclusion

Here is a short excerpt of what the report says:

“We now know that at a minimum, about one quarter of all involuntary detentions involve the use of seclusion or restraint within the first three days of admission alone. With close to 30,000 Mental Health Act detentions in BC each year, the continued unregulated and unlimited use of this physical and structural violence is unacceptable. A culture without accountability is a shield for a system where treatment can be traumatic. BC’s Mental Health Act has permitted direction and discipline to take place out of sight and out of reach of any kind of recourse for over sixty years. It’s time for this extraordinarily invasive and harmful exercise of power to meet rigorous oversight and accountability.”

For the full report, see Health Justice’s blog post here: Seclusion and Restraints in BC: What we know and what we don’t — Health Justice.