LIVES are at risk due to a severe shortage of psychologists at Hong Kong's hospitals, with patients in urgent need of treatment being turned away, say government psychologists.
The Legislative Council health panel will discuss the shortage today after the Hong Kong Psychological Society passed on its fears to panel chairman Dr Leong Che-hung.
Highly traumatised patients - including those who had attempted suicide and rape victims - were not able to see a psychologist for up to a year after their ordeal, turning them into chronic depressives, a clinical psychologist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Mary Lee Wing-ming, said.
And one or two of her 40 to 50 new cases each month did not turn up for their appointments, leaving her unable to find out what had happened to them because they had already been discharged from hospital, she said.
Ironically, such patients would get better treatment if they were prisoners.
Prisons feature more psychologists per offender than hospitals have per patient, the president of the Hong Kong Psychological Society, Lu Chan Ching-chien, said.
