Saturday, November 04, 2006

East Asia's Mental Health Challenge

With the expansion of economic growth in the Asian countries, some people are feeling the pressures of everyday life. There is also more expendable money so that they may desire to seek mental health care for either a relative or themselves.

Unfortunately, China is still very behind in this area of health care.
China, where the psychiatric profession has seen a resurgence in the last 20 years, can boast just 1.06 psychiatric beds per 10,000 people, compared with 13.80 in developed South Korea.

This compares with 0.63 beds per 10,000 in Vietnam and 0.55 in Burma and 0.07 in Laos, with psychiatric in-patient care in Cambodia virtually non-existent.
This discrepancy will take many years to achieve a reasonably safe amount of care for all people who seek help. After all, we do not want people to suffer when it is not neccessary.

Read the entire article.