The electroshock, electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), being used for the treatment of the mentally ill patients will now be soon banned in India. The treatment, recommended for severe depression patients, who fails to respond to other treatments, will be given only when the patients is under the influence of anesthesia.

The ECT has been introduced in India in 1940, is a psychiatric treatment leading to insertion is seizures electrically in the patients.

The Union Health Ministry is to give final shape to the proposed Mental Health Care Bill, 2010 has decided to ban the ECT.

Dr Nimesh Desai, Director, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, said, “To totally ban ECT is wrong. But direct ECT should be banned. ECT under the influence of anesthesia, too, should be sparingly used.”

The Health Ministry had decided earlier to make some amendments in the Mental Health Act, 1987.

In 2001, in Erwadi in India, 20 mentally ill patients got burned to death when the fire engulfed the hospital where they were kept tied to their beds with chains.

The new bill had special provisions for minors who are being treated for mental illness. According to the bill, the patients under the age of 18 years will only be admitted in the mental hospital when the subject has been independently examined by the two psychiatrists on the day of admission or in last seven days of admission and both conclude that the subject is suffering from acute mental illness.

The bill also says that the physical restraint or seclusion can only be given to the patient only when the patient poses immediate danger to person surrounding him.