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Admissions of mental patients
Following is a question by Dr the Hon Huang Chen-ya and a written reply by the Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Katherine Fok, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
Reply:
Is the Government aware of:
(a)
(b)
the number of psychiatric patients, together with a breakdown of the categories of psychiatric illness of such patients, admitted into public hospitals in the past year; and
the respective numbers of new and known psychiatric patients admitted through the accident and emergency departments in public hospitals, together with a breakdown of the categories of psychiatric illness of such patients, in the same period?
A breakdown by major mental illnesses of the 9,181 in-patient admissions into public psychiatric hospitals and units in the past year is provided below.
Category of Mental Illnesses
Number of Admissions
Schizophrenic psychoses
5,269 (57.4%)
Affective psychoses
1,368 (14.9%)
Other psychoses
891 ( 9.7%)
Neurotic/personality disorders
395 ( 4.3%)
Senile/presenile organic psychotic conditions
248 (2.7%)
Alcohol dependence syndrome and drug dependence Other mental disorders
239 ( 2.6%)
771 (8.4%)
9,181 (100%)
Total:
A total of 3,329 admissions were made through the accident and emergency departments, including 1,092 new and 2,237 known cases. We do not have readily available data to break down further the disease categories involved but the Hospital Authority is planning to start a new Psychiatric Clinical Information System to enhance the access of information in this regard.
End