Health MEC Marius Fransman has called for an early discharge of chronic patients from government hospitals into community care to relieve overloaded health facilities.
Fransman said there was a need to tackle the scourge of substance abuse in local communities, but "overloads" that were being experienced in the acute services were proving to be a challenge for the sector.
Fransman called for the speedy addressing of this problem, saying the freeing of space in mental-health care sectors could help staff to cope better.
"We also need to find ways to reduce the high readmission rates we have at present.
"We have to tackle the scourge of substance abuse, especially the use of tik, if we are going to reduce the workload and prevent the pernicious cycles of addiction in our youth from worsening.
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"We need to continually refine our data on all aspects of the incidence of mental illness and to use this data to establish whether we are providing equitable and adequate resources to combat mental illnesses or not," he said.
Speaking at the World Mental Health Day conference held at Lentegeur Psychiatric Hospital on Friday, Fransman raised concerns about the escalating prevalence of substance abuse, especially that of tik, and how this had added to the burden of the disease.
At least 22 percent of the Western Cape population suffers from mental illness, with the disease believed to be the cause of many disabilities.
The drug problem mainly affected youth and was vastly spreading even to the most rural parts of the province, putting more pressure on the already overloaded public healthcare sector.
According to the Medical Research Council's South African Stress and Health survey, at least 16,5 percent of South Africans suffered from common mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and substance use disorders in 2007.
Fransman said for too long the discipline of psychiatry had been the "step-child" of health sciences, and that needed to be turned around as psychiatric services were integral to a good health delivery system.
There was also a need to upgrade government buildings and to redesign some psychiatric hospitals to create environments that were more conducive to a therapeutic rather than an institutional approach to psychiatry.
Some of the improvements in acute wards needed to include more safety features such as CCTV and panic buttons.
"We need to nurture the multi-sectoral, multi-departmental approach to mental health care because we have all realised this is critical to good outcomes.
"Within the service itself we need to recognise that no one cog in the wheel of health care is more important than another, meaning good mental health care rests firmly on a multi-disciplinary team approach," he added.
- This article was originally published on page 9 of Cape Argus on October 13, 2008
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