Expert search for the development of bilateral relations with Iceland’s mental health NGO’s and human rights activists

The Director and Programmes Director of NGO ‘Global Initiative on Psychiatry’ Karilė Levickaitė and Virginia Klimukienė respectively visited Iceland on 25-28th August 2013. The aim of the visit was to build bilateral relations with Iceland’s NGO’s and human rights specialists working in the field of mental health. The visit was funded by the Bilateral Relations Fund of the NGO Programme in Lithuania as a core activity of the project “Expert search for the development of bilateral relations with Iceland’s mental health NGO’s and human rights activists”.

During this inspiring visit meetings were held with the representatives of eight organisations as follows: Margret Maria Sigurthardottir of Children’s Ombudsman’s Office, Head of the Psychiatry Department of the National Hospital Pall Mattiasson, Icelandic Centre for Human Rights – an umbrella NGO that brings together 14 organizations, Margret Linda Asgrimsdottir and Bjarni Thor Petursson of Reykjavik’s Labor Exchange, Mental Health Alliance – an NGO operating since 1949, which is an umbrella association currently hosting about 500 members, the Role Center’s Director Eline Ebba Ásmundsdóttir, the Recovery Centre’s Director Auður Axelsdóttir and finally the Children’s Counseling Centre.

As Head of the Psychiatry Department of the National Hospital Pall Mattiasson noted, Iceland has no separate mental health care policy, and in his opinion such a policy is not needed because mental health policy has to be integrated into an overall national health policy. Interestingly, Iceland has nratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Human Rights Convention’s Optional Protocol (OPCAT), nevertheless, human rights monitoring activities are being actively implemented and shadow reports are being consistently developed.

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is not only ratified, but also used as the backgound for the national law on Child Rights, which was adopted recently.

It should be noted that the physical restraint at the time of psychosis has long since ceased being applied in Iceland and the number of involuntary hospitalisation’s cases is decreasing every year (it currently stands at only 3.6 % of all hospitalisation cases). The last institution where people who lacked mental capacity lived was closed down in 2010: the law had been passed that people with disabilities have the right to live in the community and receive the support they need there, thus the whole system of care was re-shifted to more empowering and inclusive community-based services.

Our organisation benefited from the site visit for building capacities and gained knowledge and capaccities to advocate for human rights, child rights and rights of people with disabitilies. Also international relations were strenghened keeping new contacts for further advocacy activities in Lithuania.