More people are seeking help for mental conditions such as depression, alcohol abuse and obsessive compulsive disorder, and the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) hopes to have more of them treated in the community.
Last year, 42,663 people went for outpatient treatment at IMH – Singapore’s only tertiary psychiatric hospital. This was a 22% rise from the 35,002 people seen in 2010. Inpatient admissions – about 9,000 last year – have been growing at a slower rate of less than 1% each year.
“This is exactly what we want. We want to have more people coming for outpatient services voluntarily and not coming to our emergency department or be hospitalised,” said IMH chief executive Chua Hong Choon.
But he added that this increase in demand for outpatient services is “not good enough”. “We need to do more so that if people don’t want to come and see us, they can see our partners such as the general practitioners (GPs) or polyclinics in the community,” he added.
Senior Minister of State for Health Amy Khor said last year (2017) that the target is for one in two polyclinics to implement mental health clinics by 2021 as part of a new five-year plan to strengthen community mental health services. To meet the increase in demand for mental health services, staff strength at IMH has grown correspondingly by a quarter from 1,986 in 2010 to 2,483 as of last year. It has also been redesigning jobs and tapping technology such as telemedicine to raise productivity.
However, its bed-crunch situation remains a challenge.
IMH said it is unable to give data on bed occupancy rates. But at least half of its 2,000 beds or so are occupied by long-staying patients, or those who have been warded for at least one year.
Prof Chua said the solution is not more beds but improved community treatment programmes so patients can be discharged earlier and get equally good care outside IMH. That is why IMH has been working with partners such as the polyclinics, GPs and voluntary welfare organisations to train them to spot or treat mental health conditions in the community.
IMH has tried to change mindsets by embracing a recovery-oriented approach to mental health care in the last five years. Its staff and patients are taught to see mental health not as a chronic and handicapping illness but a condition that one can recover from.
IMH, together with other mental health organisations, is walking the talk. The institute has hired 12 recovering patients – called peer support specialists – on a full-or part-time basis to provide support to their peers. Other agencies also employ such specialists.
Despite the surge in people seeking treatment, many still go untreated. The Singapore Mental Health study conducted in 2010 found that people with mental illness do not seek help until years later. That is why IMH hopes to see a growth of 10% in outpatient numbers every year, up from about 2% to 3% a year currently.
Read more here.
Source: The Straits Times, 29 April 2018