This was written as part of Red Room Poetry’s collaborative project AUTHOR UNKNOWN.

You can read it on their website here, alongside its partner poem THE CEO MUST DO A THING, by the brilliant David Stavanger (cited here under the collaborative pseudonym Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips). PRINCIPLES FOR VICTIMS AND OTHERS is a found poem using excerpts of the the Queensland Mental Health Act 2016; David’s is a found poem using the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill 2022.

PRINCIPLES FOR VICTIMS AND OTHERS

The patient is unfit to appear / in this Act

in absence of person / the person becomes an involuntary patient

when the person is admitted.

A person is presumed / a person only if it’s appropriate

Because of the person’s illness

the person does not have capacity to consent.

The relevant patient is observed, while kept in seclusion.

Information about the person must be recognised:

the person as if a reference:

the person is a member of a particular racial group

the person has a particular economic or social status

the person has a particular sexual preference or sexual orientation

the person engages in sexual promiscuity

the person engages in immoral or indecent conduct

the person takes drugs or alcohol

the person has an intellectual disability

the person engages in antisocial behaviour or illegal behaviour

the person is or has been involved in family conflict

the person has previously been treated for a mental illness

A person may have a mental illness

A person may have / human worth and dignity as an individual

The authorised doctor examining the patient

may be at risk of harming others.

An assisting clinician’s functions are limited

A person is to be encouraged

a person is to be provided

a person is to be helped

a person’s / special needs must be recognised and taken into account

for example, destroying it or giving it away

Care of a person means a reference to care of the person

recovery of a person means development of a person

When the person is discharged

Nothing in this Act makes the State liable.