Once or twice a month, each patient gets a visit by the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT).

Their job is to work with the patient and his family to keep him from having to be admitted into the Institute of Mental Health.

Team members, usually a nurse or a medical social worker, will sit and count the number of pills with the patient 'to make sure he is taking his medicines regularly', said senior nurse clinician Ong Seng Hong, 61.

'A patient is given a certain number of pills to last him until his next appointment. By counting the pills, we can tell if he had been taking them,' he said.

The CMHT programme was created in 2007, following the Health Ministry's announcement that it would pump $88 million into fighting mental illness over the next five years - almost half of which would be poured into community care efforts.

Each CMHT is a multidisciplinary team led by a psychiatrist. It is made up of four to six nurses, an occupational therapist, a psychologist and a medical social worker.

Read the full report in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.