Health officials of Chengdu in the southwestern Sichuan province urge its local residents to report any signs of people's abnormal behavior by introducing a reward system, a Global Times article noted.
The health bureau of its Shuangliu district is offering a reward worth 50 yuan (U.S.$7.50) to any informant who will provide tip-offs on people with tendency to have mental illnesses.
An additional 300 yuan will be given should the person reported will be diagnosed with mental health issues.The announcement was released via the bureau's official Sina Weibo account on Thursday.
To help residents identify an abnormal behavior, the authorities also released a list for reference. The roster includes brawling, speaking loudly to oneself, being undressed in public areas, not attending work or school without reason, harming oneself or threatening to commit suicide.
According to Feng Changfu, the bureau's Party Chief, the move eyes to intensify the group's campaign to detect more cases of mental illness as early as possible.
Patients with abnormal behavior will be provided with proper treatment and national subsidies.
The bureau further clarified that the informers are required to sign an agreement of confidentiality once they received their reward.
Nonetheless, some contested that the new mental illness reporting is illegal as it violates people's privacy.
"It is ridiculous and self-contradictory. How could you protect patients' privacy while encouraging their neighbors to report them?," Zhang Zanning, a law expert at Southeast University in East China's Jiangsu Province, shared.
Zhang also emphasized that the list of abnormal behaviors released by the health bureau is not necessarily effective in recognizing a mental illness.
The expert noted that mental illness is "difficult to diagnose due to a lack of quantitative criteria," Global Times wrote.
Netizens also expressed concern on the list, saying that it is too vague. A number of people also shared that they are worried about being wrongly identified as mentally ill based on the released criteria.