GUANGZHOU - Shenzhen doctors will see their licenses suspended and face fines of up to 50,000 yuan ($7,824) if they are found guilty of sending someone who isn't mentally ill into a mental hospital for treatment.

A proposed Rule on Mental Hygiene in Shenzhen also stipulates that hospitals and medical institutions found to have assisted doctors in admitting such people would be fined 100,000 yuan and lose their operating licenses.

And doctors who deliberately misdiagnose a mental illness would be held criminally responsible.

The rule is expected to be passed by the Shenzhen People's Congress next week.

Zhou Rongsheng, deputy director of the congress's legal affairs committee, said the rule would help to ensure that hospitals, medical institutions and doctors conform to a set of standards.

"The rule requires mental hospitals and doctors to clearly inform their patients, or their patients' guardians, of the rights they have, as well as to inform them of their medical treatment plans and the possible future results and side effects of that treatment," Zhou said.

"Mental patients would only be given treatment when that has been approved by the patients themselves or, if the patients aren't capable of controlling their own actions, by their guardians," he said.

The proposed rule also forbids hospitals and medical institutions from forcing mental patients to work unless that work is part of their treatment.

The approval of patients or their guardians would also be needed before mental patients could be used for the purposes of teaching, scientific research or testing new treatments and medicines.

The same people's permission would also be required before mental patients' medical records could not be released to the public.

Meanwhile, brain operations could not be performed without the approval of the city's health department.

Hospitals that violate that rule would be fined 50,000 yuan and could, in serious cases, lose their operating licenses.

Wang Fangcheng, a Shenzhen doctor, said the new rule "would help protect the legal rights and interests of patients".

Shenzhen's legislation body drafted the rule after city leaders witnessed a large increase in the number of mental patients who are being treated in the city.

The rate of incidence of mental disorder among Shenzhen's residents older than 18 exceeds 20 percent. That figure has increased fourfold in the past 10 years ago. Some observers have attributed that rise to the pressure many workers in the city feel at their jobs.

Official statistics, meanwhile, show that Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, is home to more than 46,000 registered mental patients.

Many experts say Shenzhen's proposed rule and rules like it help to protect the rights of ordinary people.

Fan Chongyi, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, said the practice of "forcing somebody to be a mental patient" will be abolished if the rule is passed.

"Any person or department can no longer send somebody to a mental hospital just because they think he or she is a mental patient," he said.

In the past, many sane people have been forced into mental hospitals.

In December 2005, He Jinrong, a Guangzhou millionaire, was sent to a Guangzhou hospital to be treated for a mental illness. The entire time he was there, He maintained that he was not suffering from any sort of disorder. He was forced into the hospital, he said, in retaliation for his intention to divorce his wife.

Months after being discharged, he sued the hospital and his wife, asking for 1 million yuan in compensation and an apology.

The court has held four hearings on the case but has issued no ruling.