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Mental patient in search of care for hepatitis C

By Cheng Anqi (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-09-02 11:14

A man who suffers from psychosis and hepatitis C is facing an awkward situation. Neither mental hospitals nor infectious disease hospitals in Beijing are willing to treat him, because they are not equipped to deal with such a case, Chinese Radio Network reported.

The man, 40, who often injures and poisons himself, has been living with a mental disorder for 20 years, and now, he’s been diagnosed with hepatitis C at Beijing 307 hospital of PLA, but he is required to receive psychotherapy before he can get infectious disease treatment at the hospital.

However, when his parents rushed him to Beijing Huilongguan Hospital (BHH), a first-class hospital specializing in psychosis, they were told it couldn’t treat him until he was first treated for hepatitis C.

"The hospital is mainly manned with mental practitioners and not yet with hepatitis C physicians," said Yang Pude, the president of BHH, adding that a four-story building at the hospital is now being used to accommodate hepatitis B patients with mental disorder but not hepatitis C patients.

"Infectious disease hospitals are divided into different isolated areas, such as hygienic area, infection area and semi-contaminated area, which is technically demanding and stricter than ours," he said.

Two other reputable infectious disease hospitals, Beijing Youan Hospital and Beijing Ditan Hospital, often face such cases as well, and have misgivings about their inexperience in dealing with mental patients and threats to other patients.

Although the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau (BMHB) has opened mental and psychological consultations at Beijing’s third-level hospitals, there are many untreatable cases when it comes to infectious patients with mental disorders, especially hepatitis C sufferers and HIV carriers.

Statistics released in early 2009 show there are over 100 million people with mental health issues in China, and among them more than 16 million people have experienced serious mental illness.

China’s 25-year-old mental health service still has plenty of room for improvement.