1st LD Writethru-Xinhua Insight: China reaches out to the mentally impaired

China has promised better treatment for mental illness and to expand medical aid to more patients, many of whom have been neglected until the troubled turn troublemaker.

China had 4.3 million severely mentally impaired patients on official record at the end of 2014. More than 55 percent of them live in poverty.

A 2015-2020 plan for mental health work set a goal of more than 80 percent of people with severe mental illnesses in "management" by 2020, with treatment covering at least 80 percent of schizophrenia cases.

"Accidents resulting from such patients, especially fatal ones, should drop obviously, and patients responsible for such accidents will receive timely, forced if necessary, treatment, in accordance with the law," it said.

Citing depression, autism and dementia as key targets, the document noted that depression treatment rate should rise by 50 percent by 2020, and eligible patients with economic difficulties will be financially supported.

To address a grave lack of mental health professionals, the plan encourages health institutes to set up psychology clinics and strengthen staff training, raising the projected number of doctors specializing in mental disorders to 40,000 by 2020.

"We're extremely understaffed, and I have accepted virtually anyone rejected by other hospital sections, regardless of his or her background," Li Wenxiu, vice head of the Haidian district mental health prevention and treatment hospital in Beijing, told Xinhua.

China currently has 1,650 professional mental health institutes, with over 20,000 physicians and 228,000 beds, meaning that the country has to double the number of mental health physicians in five years.

"While management networks and hotlines are the hardware part, cultivating talent in the mental health field is the basic for treating those patients," Ren Fangxin, director of the psychological consultation and treatment center at Peking University Hospital.

The government has pinned its hope on more educational campaigns to make the public aware that mental illnesses should be treated as early as possible, and that such patients "should be cared for, not discriminated against."

"Discrimination originates from misunderstanding. More effort to promote knowledge related to mental illnesses is urgently needed," Wei Jing, professor with Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

According to the plan, every province-level region should have its own hotline and an intervention team.

FROM MENTAL TO PSYCHO

Due to inadequate treatment, economic difficulties and low awareness, many patients are brutally confined or left to wander alone on the street, where tragedy waits round every corner.

Wu Yuanhong was locked in a reinforced iron cage by his mother, with his legs shackled, for 11 years. Before that, Wu pressed his mother's head into a puddle on a rainy day, and beat a 13-year-old boy to death after the boy bullied him.

"No mother wants to lock her child in a cage, but I couldn't allow him to go out and hurt people again, could I? It's the only way," said Wang Muxiang, Wu's mother.

Wang takes meals to her son three times a day. In the cage, Wu could only see the outside world through one small window.

In 2013, Wu was freed and taken to a city hospital to receive treatment under a free medical aid policy after intense negotiations between government officials and his family who were reluctant to take responsibility for him.

"Patients with severe mental problems are usually hit by delusions when they cause bedlam or kill people. With proper treatment, such delusions will be reduced and even eliminated, thus they won't kill," said Lu Lin, head of the Peking University Sixth Hospital.

Thursday's plan called for coordinated effort from social management, health, police, civil affairs, justice departments and the disabled persons' federation in taking care of the mentally impaired, stressing that at least 70 percent of villages and towns should have their own teams to mind the affairs of such patients by 2020.

"Neither excessive care nor total negligence is good for a mental patient's recovery. Ideally, patients should return to their previous social environment, with professional rehab staff to train their socializing and other skills," said He Yanling, a physician with the Shanghai Mental Health Center.

However, he noted that the ideal treatment is hard to follow with "the current level of social acceptance."

The plan also urges to exploring ways to prevent and treat mental illness in general while setting up rehab centers and a green channel to take in patients who are dangerous or have committed accidents or crimes and give them treatment.

"Disease can affect one's breath and temperature, and can also corrupt one's perception, emotion and communication. Disease can do all those things, and we must mind that by all means," Wei added. Endi