As well as representing a technical breakthrough, good policy
and accompanying legislation are the foundations of a new mental
health law which could benefit not only the 100 million mental
disease patients but the country's whole population.
Hao Ping, a doctor from Henan Province and Han Deyun, a lawyer from Chongqing, teamed up on proposing new mental
health legislation during this year's National People's Conference
(NPC) session in March.
A member of the national medical expert team, Hao's contribution
was to offer free medical aid to impoverished farmers and urban
residents every year. She highlighted the need to cater properly
for mental patients, most of whom stay at home living empty lives.
They also often suffer from discrimination from a biased
public.
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According to the National Center for Mental Health under the
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), over
100 million people suffer from mental disease in China but only 20
percent of the 16 million serious cases are treated in
hospital.?
"For years, the NPC annual sessions have paid attention to
mental health legislation, with dozens of motions tabled each
year," noted Tang Hongyu, vice dean of Peking University Mental
Health Research Institute. "A specific law would help to protect
patients' rights and safeguard mental health at large."
As one of the NPC deputies backing such a law, Huo Jinhua wrote
that China is lagging behind other nations in the area of mental
health. Prevention and community surveillance are woeful given a
lack of appropriate legislation, as is the level of care in
remedial institutes.
While over 100 countries have passed mental health laws
following France's example set in 1938, China tends to depend on
clauses belonging to other laws. For example, civil law sets up
custody systems for the protection and oversight of mental
patients' lives and legal rights. A clause from criminal law waives
judicial punishment for mental patients following medical
examination.
"In fact, most of the stipulations can't meet the requirement of
current situation," said Huo.
Back in 1985, the Ministry of Health (MOH) tasked health
authorities in Sichuan and Hunan provinces to draft a mental
health law but all 20 drafts were considered unsatisfactory.
According to Tang, a main reason exists for the delay in the
law. Since local governments would be financially liable for all
treatment, economic disparity between different regions would make
this system unfair.
The richest areas, such as Shanghai, Ningbo and Beijing,
naturally has the best care systems whereas China CDC stats for
2005 registered less than 30 psychiatrists in the poorer provinces
of Qinghai and Ningxia while Tibet had absolutely no mental healthcare
facilities.
Since 1980s, governments have focused on economic development,
while overlooking the social burden that mental diseases are on
society at large.
Liu Xiehe, a 78-year-old co-drafter of the law, put the delay
down to a lack of awareness.
On March 14, the MOH put the mental health law on its annual
legislation plan and should be submitted to the NPC 2008
session.
Experts have gone a step further in calling for more disease
prevention. Thus, the law will require each school to provide an
adequate proportion of psychological councilors to cater to their
whole student body.
The absence of a law can also be felt in terms of the poor
investments received by existing mental health projects. Even in
Beijing, surveys have shone a light on the poor equipment and
dilapidated facilities of psychiatric wards with many of the
institutions built as late as the 1990s being forced to shut
down.
One expert pointed to the success seen in other countries by the
application of community treatment, enabling the patients to avoid
leaving their normal social environment to be rehabilitated in a
timely fashion. Thus, he called for the law to incorporate such a
situation, which could be infinitely preferable to systematic
hospitalization.
(China.org.cn by Huang Shan, April 18, 2007)