Daily Lessons from Life 12 October 2010 - China's mental health system 'in chaos'

"China's mental health system 'in chaos' - Tue, Oct 12, 2010 AFP

BEIJING, Oct 12, 2010 (AFP) - China's mental health system is in disarray, putting healthy individuals at risk of being forced into psychiatric hospitals and ignoring those who need treatment, a charity warned on Tuesday.

'The current situation for mental health treatment in China is in deep chaos,' the Equity and Justice Initiative, based in the southern city of Shenzhen, said in a report emailed to AFP.

'On the one hand, patients who should be treated cannot get treatment because they cannot pay medical expenses,' said the charity, which focuses on public health issues.

A mentally unstable person in Hainan killed and dismembered an 8-year old girl in 2009 was diagnosed with schizophrenic having previously murdered 2 elderly couple instead of being assigned to psychiatrist hospital care, was put under the care of the family whom had NO CONTROL over him! While in another case, a farmer was put in the mental institute by the local authority to prevent him from petitioning some injustice being done to him!!

According to the state media, under the current system, anyone can be put in a mental health institute by his or her relatives as long as they claimed that the person has mental issue! And the only one who can get them out is the people who put them there in the 1st place??!!"

This is a scary picture if it is really true! It is CRAZY!! Yes. Crazy!!

Lessons for me are:

1. glad that there are some charities that do this type of investigative work for the people who could not defend themselves;

2. the system is obviously flawed. There need to be a procedure where people who were reported to be 'mentally disturbed - mildly or seriously' is properly tested by qualified psychiatrists instead of relying on the 'allegation' or 'description' by those who put them there! Maybe there is a resource issue?;

3. when 'mental' illness is explored by the corrupt officials to 'shut-out' petitioners, it must be investigated by higher authorities and the wrong be righted. Otherwise, the grievances will grow and explode in due course. Again, it may be another resource allocation issue. By one official count released in 2009, there were 100m mental health patients in China, including 16m people in serious condition!!

May the authority recognize the issue as serious as it takes to growing the GDP! Witnessed the price paid by parents whose kids were killed in the recent spates of murders committed at kindergartens and primary schools around the country!!