‘We need psychiatrists more than mental health clinics’

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Dr Jerip Susil

KUCHING: Sarawak is much more in urgent need of psychiatrists than mental health clinics.

“At the moment, there is a psychiatric unit in Kota Sentosa Hospital and also a psychiatric unit within Sarawak General Hospital.

“Our problem is not so much of health clinics. They are adequate for the time being. What we need is not more mental health clinics but more psychiatrists,” Public Health Assistant Minister Dr Jerip Susil told The Borneo Post yesterday in response to Mental Health Promotion Advisory Council member Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye’s call to set up community mental health centres in every state.

He said the state should only set up as many mental health clinics as it needed once it had enough psychiatrists.

Due to the shortage in their numbers, psychiatrists in Kota Sentosa Hospital had to conduct visiting consultations to all major towns in Sarawak.

Stressing that psychiatric appointment was the purview of the federal government, the state assemblyman for Bengoh said the shortage was due to the lack of interest from doctors and senior medical officers.

He pointed out that although Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Malaya and Universiti Sains Malaysia offered psychiatric courses there were very few takers.

“Bearing in mind that psychiatrists constitute the highest number of suicidal cases among doctors, it is understandable that not
many doctors want to take up the field. It is a challenging field,” said Dr Jerip.

Without statistics to authenticate whether mental cases were on the increase in Sarawak, Dr Jerip pointed out that the global trend did show an increase in number of mental cases each year, especially in countries with high technology.

“Societies have changed now due to technological innovation. There has been lack of human contact and relationship bonding between individuals is weakening.

“Young people today are so much into electronic gadgets  and cyber world that they have become isolative and less interactive on a personal level.

“They do not spend time with people and thus do not pick  up the skills to solve problems. They are also lacking the skills to think through or analyse  life problems as they don’t  talk to people to find a  solution like we did,” said Dr Jerip, explaining the factors leading to growing mental cases globally.

He promised that even though mental health was under  the purview of the federal government, he would pass the need of the state on to the federal government.