Henan suffers 'shortage' of mentally ill

Community health centers have been apportioned quotas to find people with serious mental illness in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, but some centers in the Central China city cannot find enough.

Two out of every 1,000 people is the standard set for each neighborhood health center to identify and register, according to a report in Nandu Daily, and an official from the city's health bureau said this standard was much lower than national standards.

The Zhengzhou quota had been set "due to documents from upper level authorities," a health bureau official told the Global Times. She requested anonymity.

The former Ministry of Health issued regulations supervising local health authorities' handling of serious mental illness in 2012. The document required authorities to identify and register 2.5 seriously mentally ill in every 1,000 Chinese people by 2012, three by 2013, 3.5 in 2014 and four in 2015.

More than 100 million Chinese people suffer from some kind of mental illness, according to 2009 statistics released by China's National Center for Mental Health. More than 16 million were counted as suffering from serious mental diseases, suggesting 12 out of every 1,000 Chinese are seriously mentally ill.

They had been busy registering patients with serious mental illness but she did not know the exact figures, a director of Linshanzhai community health center, who refused to be named, told the Global Times.

The center offers free drugs and other services to patients but registration is still hard as few people are willing to admit to mental illness, she said.

At Fengchanlu community center that serves 30,000 people, 20 people with serious mental illness are registered, the Nandu Daily reported. Linke community health center has identified 12, fewer than the 71 required by the quota.

Feng Xinsheng, director of Jingwulu district community health center, told the paper that differences between communities should be considered.

Feng said most of the people in his community are in rude health, whereas some other communities like villages might have much worse situations. In his opinion, his community should have a registration rate of 1.5 per 1,000.

Zhengzhou's mental health registration work is part of a nationwide program for people with mental illness launched in May 2012, a spokesman for the Henan provincial center for disease control told Nandu Daily.

Zhang Zanning, a law professor at Southeast University in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, who focuses on mental health issues, told the Global Times a quota for each community did not suit normal life.

They should register exactly how many people have mental illness, said Zhang. "Zhengzhou's move is significant for carrying out an epidemiological survey of mental illness and helping people with mental illness," he said. "However, China's mental health law that takes effect this year also respects the wishes of patients about whether or not to accept medical treatment."