Integrating Public and Private Psychiatric Practice: From National Agenda to Personal Experience

The National Mental Health Policy in April 1992 [1] highlighted the need to reform mental health care delivery. The policy suggested that mental health care be restricted to those with a ‘serious mental illness’ and that half of the people with serious mental illnesses were untreated whilst many with less serious illnesses were over-serviced. A key challenge for service reform from the outset was the need to allocate appropriate resources in a manner that reflected the point of care [2]. Several authors suggested that whilst the policy made recommendations regarding the process of reform, little mention was made of the resources required to accomplish such reform and that there was a significant shortfall of manpower [3,4].