Letters | Hong Kong needs to get serious about children’s mental health
According to the World Health Organization, 10 to 20 per cent of children and young people worldwide experience mental disorders. In Hong Kong, the number of patients aged below 18 who have mental illness has rapidly increased in recent years, from 28,800 cases in 2015 to 39,700 in 2019.
Over the past year, the social and political turmoil, coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic, has brought about unprecedented challenges to our society, devastating the livelihoods of many vulnerable families. Prolonged closures of schools and public facilities for children have also compounded the existing mental health problems that children and young people are faced with, further deteriorating their health and well-being.
Ahead of the Chief Executive’s policy address, Save the Children Hong Kong urges the government to adopt multipronged approaches to resolve issues concerning children’s mental health in Hong Kong.
The waiting time for public outpatient services for children who may suffer from psychological illnesses needs to be reduced, and there ought to be a sufficient number of psychiatrists, community psychiatric nurses, and case managers to meet the long-term needs of patients. Currently there is about one psychiatrist per 20,000 people in Hong Kong. We recommend that the WHO guideline of having at least one psychiatrist per 10,000 people be adopted in the city.
Similarly, School-based Educational Psychology Service should be strengthened. The long-standing shortage of psychiatric service resources at schools in Hong Kong has intensified the caseload of Educational Psychologists, diminishing the quality of case assessment and services.
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We recommend the government consider standardising the educational psychologists-student ratio to not over 1: 1,000 as a long-term policy goal. In addition, schools can provide additional training opportunities for teachers and social workers to enhance their knowledge of mental health, so students with issues can be identified and supported promptly.
