China’s first listed psychiatric hospital is on track to break the mental-health taboo in a country where such illnesses are still stigmatised by traditional perceptions. Due to begin trading on Friday, privately-owned Wenzhou Kangning Hospital is set to raise HK$681 million in a Hong Kong initial public offering by selling 17.6 million shares priced at HK$38.7, the upper end of the indicative range of HK$32.1 to HK$38.7. Guan Weili, chairman and founder of the Wenzhou-based operation, said overstressed young adults accounted for most of the outpatients at the hospital, with insomnia, anxiety and depression being the three most-commonly treated illnesses. “These diseases have been on the rise and are very common among ordinary people,” he said. Investors are betting that Kangning will benefit from a market estimated by US consultants Frost & Sullivan to be worth 35 billion yuan (HK$42.4 million) this year, almost doubling to 65 billion yuan by 2019, with almost 200 million mainland Chinese said to be suffering from some form of mental health disorder. The Kangning public offering was “very significantly” oversubscribed, the company said in a statement, with applications for 220.53 million shares received for the 1.76 million shares on offer. Net proceeds from the fundraising will be used to build more psychiatric healthcare facilities in China’s populous eastern and southwestern regions, as well as in remote country areas where services are greatly needed but scarce, Guan said. “The demand for mental health care services exceeds supply, as there has been a major shift in the way Chinese people think about mental health,” Guan said. “People are increasingly aware of the need for treatment of those problems as society grows more prosperous.” In the early 1990s Guan worked as a clinician in the government-owned Wenzhou Mental Hospital where he witnessed first-hand the “huge” demand for such services. Frustrated that state-owned hospitals were failing to meet the mental-health care needs of society, Guan quit his job in 1996 and founded Kangning. Yan Hongfeng, deputy head of the central-government’s Mental Health Counseling Centre, agreed that mental illness was a taboo topic in traditional Chinese culture. “Many people used to consider it a deep shame to acknowledge that they or a family member had mental health issues and would choose to hide it from doctors,” he said. However, he added that as society has developed, traditional perceptions of mental illness have changed among many Chinese, with mental health issues garnering much more public attention. “There are many types of mental disorders and different levels of severity. It may be more common than people think,” Yan said. “Clearly people are increasingly aware of that and are talking more about their mental health needs.” Notwithstanding the growing demand, treatment for mental illness is still relatively deficient in the country. China didn’t have any mental health provisions until 2012, when the national congress passed the first law that standardised mental health care services, including a requirement for general hospitals to set up mental illness clinics and provide counselling services, as well as train medical workers. In recent years, a surge of violent attacks against school children by mentally disturbed men has also focused public attention on the country’s inadequate psychiatric health care system In recent years, a surge of violent attacks against school children by mentally disturbed men has also focused public attention on the country’s inadequate psychiatric health care system. In 2010, nearly 20 schoolchildren were killed in a spate of separate attacks, prompting the Chinese government to pledge “urgent steps” to improve mental health care and address the root causes of the problem, with drastic social transformation and increased inequality cited as two key factors. A study published in June by the US-based Brookings Institution said the increase in number of Chinese suffering from mental illness could be attributed to “the very rapid nature of China’s transition and growth patterns” and associated “progress paradoxes” where people tend to become unhappy despite progress. Carol Graham, a senior fellow at Brookings and lead author of the study, said rapid levels of economic growth were often associated with an increase in inequality and sense of insecurity. “The lack of security associated with China’s rapid progress is a critical factor, as are long working hours and high workforce stress,” she said. Currently more than 180 million people in China suffer from psychiatric disorders, according to a November report by Frost & Sullivan. The figures indicate that about one in every 10 people on the mainland have a mental health problem. However, the country is struggling with a deficient psychiatric healthcare system, including lack of medical facilities and doctors. According to Frost & Sullivan, the national average number of psychiatrist and psychiatric beds per 10,000 persons in China in 2011 was 0.15 and 1.47 respectively, in sharp contrast with the median ratio of 1.2 and 7.4 in G7 countries in the same year. In March this year provincial government media reports said a mentally ill man had been locked in a chicken cage for 13 years by his own mother in the city of Shaoyang. The reports quoted the mother saying she didn’t know what else to do because her son suffered from mental problems and was known as “crazy fighter” by neighbours. In 2013, a man in Jiangsu province was found to have been chained in a room for 15 years by his mother. He was also diagnosed as mentally disturbed and had become violent, according to media reports. Kangning’s Guan said he has been expanding his own hospital network over the past few years but is still barely able to meet demand. Currently, the hospital network has nine psychiatric health care facilities and 2,210 beds in operation. The bed occupancy rate has stayed above 90 per cent since 2012. For the first six months of this year the utilisation rate reached 95 per cent. Guan plans to increase the number of beds by more than 1,200 in the next four years. “[Psychiatric healthcare] is a market with immense opportunities,” he said.