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Repatriation of mentally ill patients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Gareth W. Hughes
Affiliation:
Cefn Coed Hospital, Swansea, Wales SA2 0GH
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Of all the decisions taken by psychiatrists with or on behalf of their patients, few are as potentially far-reaching as the decision to repatriate a mentally ill person to his or her country of origin. Although many psychiatrists have anecdotal experience of individual cases, published research on repatriation is surprisingly sparse. Burke (1973) reported 66 persons repatriated from Britain to Jamaica over a four year period, and Asuni (1968) found 82 returning via Aro Hospital, Nigeria, over a similar period. Although it is difficult to extrapolate an estimate of the number leaving the UK each year, these figures suggest that the practice is not uncommon and that significant, possibly increasing, numbers of people are affected.

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Current themes
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1991

References

Asuni, T. (1968) The review of Nigerian students repatriated on psychiatric grounds. West African Medical Journal, Feb., pp. 37.Google Scholar
Birch, H. (1983) The repatriation of Henry. Nursing Times, 14, 4446.Google Scholar
Burke, A. W. (1973) The consequences of unplanned repatriation. British Journal of Psychiatry, 123, 109111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burke, A. W. (1983) Outcome of mental illness following repatriation: a predictive study. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 29, 311.Google Scholar
Davison, B. (1968) No place back home. A study of Jamaicans returning to Kingston, Jamaica. Race, 9, 499501.Google Scholar
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