Beijing's Mental Illness Subsidy Granted to 25,000 People, But Under Strict Conditions

Since launching this past March, the Beijing Mental Health Care Institute's subsidy– which offers RMB 2,400 annually to those suffering from mental illness – has been granted to more than 25,000 applicants. Aside from that milestone, Beijing Today recently reported that the municipal government will allot RMB 70 million in funding to the program each year.

However, Huang Qingzhi, deputy director of the Beijing Mental Health Care Institute, said anyone hoping to apply will need to have a legal guardian with a Beijing hukou residing with them. Those guardians are also tasked with getting the patients' prescriptions, taking the patients to their therapy and treatment sessions, and more. On top of that, the program mandates the guardians keep the patients from causing "injury to others’ person or property" and saying: "The institute reserves the right to withdraw its subsidy of any mentally ill Beijingers who end up in legal trouble."

Such rhetoric sounds far from comforting, especially for a program meant to provide goodwill to the mentally ill. Cynics also might be left to wonder how an annual grant of RMB 2,400 could make any major difference for patients who might need costly care. But regardless of the subsidy's effectiveness, one can only hope that more such initiatives are launched in the near future, seeing as China and India jointly host a third of the world's health burden related to mental illness (according to a recent report published in The Lancet).

Thankfully, Chinese netizens have been far more open and progressive about these issues on social media. A recent GB Times article detailed this growing trend, and how many online users vented about feeling unable to confide in their loved ones about mental health, a factor that "appears to be indicative of how much of China looks at the issue, where poor investment and high stigma mean as few as six percent of people receive treatment for mental health problems." That's a huge amount of mental illness that goes untreated, especially when you consider that one in every 13 people in China is said to suffer from one form or another.

Regardless of shortcomings in the institutes' subsidy, the fact that such programs are now being enacted, coupled with the growing discussion about these issues online, could very well be a positive sign that China's massive mental health burden is slowly being relieved.

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Photo: Beijing Today