Malaysian News

Perhaps a more exciting news to the professional community than to the general public, ha. But how it turns out will certainly have a direct impact on the general public, hopefully significantly positive ones in terms of better accessibility and quality of MH services.

What I'm personally interested and looking forward in particular is the emphasis on coordination and collaboration between the public and private + civil/community sector. Was very supportive of this when first raised by KJ in the previous government - hopefully this is a continuation of this initiative.

Professionally, I'm hoping for clearer and wider recognition of the counselling and psychotherapy services (non-medical) by the public health authority. Specifically, for one, for MOH to recognise referrals by licensed counsellors and clinical psychotherapists. (Right now the government hospitals only recognise referrals by medical practitioners/GPs for someone to receive treatment by specialists/psychiatrists. But in reality, counsellors and psychologists do in fact receive proper and adequate training in detecting and assessing clinical mental health conditions, and would be more than qualified to make professional judgement in making referrals for one to receive specialist/medical treatments).

Coversely, to encourage and provide a clear guidelines for psychiatrists to refer patients for psychotherapy services - especially in closer collaboration between the public and private/civil sectors. For one, psychiatrists rarely refer patients out to counsellors and psychologists to receive psychotherapy, together with or in lieu of medical treatment. But almost all mental health patients would benefit from some form of non-medical mental help, which ends up with the psychiatrists having to take up the responsibility of providing psychosocial support for the patients - which is not ideal. While I have no doubt a psychiatrist would be able to perform some rudiment form of therapy, their professional training is just not in such, compared with a counsellor or clinical psychotherapist whose core professional training is in psychotherapy, and hence a psychiatrist is not expected to be competent in handling the psychotherapy aspect of mental health treatment. Secondly, with an unbalanced ratio of psychiatrist to psychotherapist in the public healthcare service (not enough of clinical psychologists and counsellors in most healthcare facilities), most patients would miss out on the opportunity to receive a more comprehensive mental healthcare. So the aspect of collaboration is quite essential in the government's initiative - and something I'm mostly looking forward to.