HONG KONG: The government is considering creating a database to establish whether there is any correlation between violent assaults and discharged mental patients, a top official has said.

Gloria Lo Kit-wai, the principal assistant secretary for food and health, told lawmakers yesterday that if the plan is carried into action, police would be asked to provide names of individuals arrested in serious assault cases. The names would be checked against Hospital Authority data to establish whether persons arrested are discharged mental patients from public hospitals.

The matter has risen to the forefront again, as the result of an incident in Sham Shui Po last month. A 3-year-old boy was chopped to death allegedly by a man believed to have mental problems.

At the meeting of the Legislative Council panel of welfare services, lawmakers expressed concern about supervision of mental patients who are recovering in the community.

Legislator Li Fung-ying questioned whether authorities will take any action if recovering mental patients refuse to take their medications, after returning home.

Cecilia Yuen, assistant director of social welfare, answered that doctors are authorized to inject prescribed medications, when patients refuse to take the drugs on their own.

Lawmaker Pan Pey-chyou said the Labour and Welfare Bureau and the Food and Health Bureau do not coordinate well when serving recovering mental patients.

Eliza Lee Man-ching, the deputy secretary for labour and welfare, pledged that coordination would be improved.

(HK Edition 06/09/2009 page1)