The NSW mental health system fails more vulnerable
We expect hospitals to be places where we go to improve. As Kate Aubusson reported on Sunday, this is not what happened to Gitta’s daughter Mueller and Doug Sewell, Bec, who endured almost 100 admissions in the hospital before his death from suicide last year.
Since then, each indication suggests the The experience of many acute patients for mental health in the hospitals of the new South Wales is only worsened.
Gitta Mueller with his daughter Bec, who died last year.
More than 200 public psychiatrists of the new South Wales presented their resignation in January-when a third of the state psychiatry positions of the State were vacant-in means of a pay battle with the state government. About 60 followed. Others have deferred, canceled or assumed more paid contractor roles.
Doctors say that their payment paths other states and working conditions are unsustainable. The government says that it cannot finance the wage increases they seek.
While many psychiatrists have delayed their resignation, the government of the new South Wales and the Australian wage medical federation NSW, the union representing the doctors, was unable to reach an agreement in the Commission for Industrial Relations at the beginning of this month.
Mental health peak organizations – including small organs for psychiatrists and psychologists – say that it is not doing enough to face the crisis in hospitals.
Loading
The federal budget of last week included an increase in financing of $ 44 million for the head space. But, from the point of view of these organizations, when governments speak of mental health – and when they open their wallets – the conversation focuses too often on less acute patients than those who present themselves to public emergencies.
Dressing loneliness in the community, virtual psychology services for conditions such as depression and anxiety and awareness campaigns on mental well -being are useful, but when we read a story like that of Bec, it is clear that this type of initiative would not have helped – has requested adequate treatment for the medical conditions with which he presented to the hospital and, according to a doctor who took care of them towards the end of his life, His inability to receive it has worsened this condition.
