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| Mentally ill patients at the Psychiatric Nursing Care Center in Đà Nẵng City. The centre is currently providing care for some 330 patients, dozens of whom have shown signs of progress and were released back to the community. - VNA/VNS Photo Anh Tuấn |
Viet Nam News
HÀ NỘI — Around 15 per cent of Việt Nam’s population – approximately 13.5 million people – suffer from 10 of the more common mental disorders, reveal statistics released yesterday.
Around 2.8 per cent of Vietnamese live with depression, 2.6 per cent suffer from anxiety disorder, while 0.47 per cent have schizophrenia, the Voice of Việt Nam (VOV) online newspaper reported.
The data was revealed yesterday at the start of a two-day meeting in Hải Phòng City, organised by Lao động và Xã hội (Labour and Society) magazine and the Social Protection Department under the Ministry of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs.
Around 200,000 Vietnamese people suffer from severe mental illnesses, according to a report by Phạm Dũng from the Medical Committee Netherlands-Việt Nam (MCNV) at the meeting. Of these, 98 per cent cannot take care of themselves, 15 per cent show violent behaviour, and 37 per cent are yet to receive medication for treatment.
Around 18 per cent of families of patients with severe mental illnesses reportedly face discrimination from the community.
The social protection department has only 45 centres across the country that offer care for patients with mental disorders.
Shortage of facilities and trained staff were the main challenges faced by the programme to take care of such patients, the department said.
To fix the situation, the labour ministry has set targets to provide care and functional rehabilitation services for 90 per cent of people with severe mental illnesses by 2020. It also aims to conduct awareness programmes so that local communities stop discriminating against patients and their families. — VNS
