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Following is a question by the Dr Hon Kwok Ka-ki and a reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (March 12):
Question:
The former Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food informed this Council that the Working Group on Mental Health Services (Working Group) chaired by him had been formed in August 2006 to comprehensively review the existing mental health policy and services, and to formulate the direction for future development of the services. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the total number of meetings held by the Working Group since its formation and the attendance rates of its members;
(b) whether the Working Group has met with those stakeholders who are related to mental health services or visited the relevant service providers to find out their views on mental health policy and the actual situation of the services concerned; and
(c) what mental health policy and specific recommendations have been put forward by the Working Group after working for more than a year, as well as of the resources required and the timetable for the implementation of such policy and recommendations?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) to (c) The Food and Health Bureau (or the former Health, Welfare and Food Bureau) set up the Working Group on Mental Health Services (Working Group) in mid-2006. The Working Group was chaired by me and comprised professionals of medical treatment and rehabilitation services of mental health, academics of psychiatry and representatives of the Hospital Authority (HA) and the Social Welfare Department (SWD). The first meeting of the Working Group was convened in August 2006 and was attended by all but one members of the Working Group. After the first meeting, I have met with representatives of the Hong Kong College of Psychiatrists and relevant non-governmental organisations to gauge the views of the profession on the development of mental health services.
The objective of the Working Group is to assist the Government to review the mental health services in Hong Kong and map out the future direction of service in the long-term. Since mental illness is a complex health problem and that the mental health services cover both health care and rehabilitation services, I will work closely with the Secretary for Labour and Welfare. The long-term development for mental health services will be examined and planned under the overall framework of health care reform.
In the short and medium term, we will allocate additional resources and launch new measures on prevention, medical treatment and rehabilitation services, to further improve our mental health services and facilitate early recovery of mental patients and their reintegration into the society.
From 2001-02 to 2006-07, the Government has provided a total of $ 209 million additional funding to HA and $39.4 million to SWD to support a number of new initiatives to improve medical treatment and rehabilitation services for mental health. We have also strengthened education and promotion on mental health, as well as early identification of persons with signs of mental health problems in schools, families and in the community through a number of community-based outreach programmes, with a view to providing early counselling and treatment services.
As regards medical services, the international trend on treatment of mental illness is to shift the focus gradually from in-patient care to community and ambulatory services, and to strengthen the training on primary care and community care to enable psychiatric health care specialists to maintain close collaboration with primary care providers and social services organisations so as to effectively provide integrated and multi-disciplinary services for patients. In the light of this trend, HA has been reviewing its psychiatric in-patient services in recent years and has stepped up the effort in developing more comprehensive community psychiatric services to progressively allow more suitable mental patients to receive treatment in the community, thereby enhancing their prospect of re-integration into the community after rehabilitation. HA has also in recent years enhanced its psychiatric outreach services, day hospital services and its psychiatric specialist out-patient services. In addition, HA has employed more psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses to strengthen the support for psychiatric services, and increased the use of new drugs to improve treatment.
As for rehabilitation services and community support, a number of services launched by the Government in recent years have achieved positive results. For instance, the Community Rehabilitation Day Services provides outreaching occupational therapy for ex-mentally ill persons so as to give them continuous support in the community. The "Extending Care Patients Intensive Treatment, Early Diversion and Rehabilitation Stepping Stone" scheme introduced in 2001 has successfully facilitated over 600 long stay mental patients to return to the community. The "Community Mental Health Link" and "Community Mental Health Care" schemes provide continuous care and support for ex-mentally ill persons and their families/carers, and help the discharged ex-mentally ill persons resolve their adjustment problems. For early identification of elders, children and adolescents who are in need of mental health services, we have launched in the community the "Child and Adolescent Mental Health Community Support Project", "Elderly Suicide Prevention Programme" and "Early Assessment and Detection of Young Persons with Psychosis". SWD has collaborated with HA to launch the "Community Mental Health Intervention Project" in October 2007 to provide in-depth outreaching intervention social work services, appropriate counselling service, and mental health assessment to those in the community who may have early signs of mental health problem, or are suspected to have mental health problems.
We will continue to implement new initiatives to strengthen mental health services in 2008-09. The HA has planned to launch a number of pilot projects, including the provision of round-the-clock community support services for frequently re-admitted mental patients so as to reduce their unnecessary admissions and in-patient bed-days; enhancement of psychiatric services in Accident and Emergency Departments to help handle patients with acute condition; and extension of the psychogeriatric outreach services currently provided to subvented residential care homes for the elderly to cover private elderly homes. HA will also strengthen the services of its Substance Abuse Clinic for drug addicts with mental health problems. To cater for the need of individual district, SWD will set up an integrated community support centre in Tin Shui Wai to provide one-stop community support services for ex-mentally ill persons and those suspected to have mental problems.
Ends/Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Issued at HKT 14:31
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