Page 4115 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Submissions have been received, a public hearing was held and the report of that review is due by the end of this year.
The third priority identified by the Mental Health Advisory Committee was the establishment of an after hours crisis service. Today I emphasise again that it will be in place by the end of this year. The Government proposes to provide an after hours crisis service by employing additional psychiatric nurses who will work outside of Monday to Friday business hours to provide telephone advice, improve the nature and rapidity of assistance to psychiatrically ill persons arriving at the A and E department at Woden Valley, improve the arrangements for after hours admissions to the psychiatric ward and provide domiciliary assistance where this is essential for the adequate management of a problem. There will be one nurse on duty on all after hours shifts, requiring 3.6 full-time equivalent staff. There will also be additional call-out assistance if home visiting is required, and this will be provided from a pool of staff available for a second on-call roster.
The mental health after hours crisis service will be based initially at the A and E department in the principal hospital. A purpose built psychiatric unit is being established there as part of the redevelopment program at that site. This unit will have an admissions centre which will replace the A and E department as the location for emergency assessment and care of the psychiatrically ill. The after hours crisis service will also be based and managed from that site. The cost in a full year is expected to be $280,000.
I want to refer at this point to comments made by Mr Berry when he was responding to this ministerial statement. He alleged - I regret that he is not here at present - that although the previous Government had outlaid $150,000 in the 1989-90 financial year the full year effect of that $150,000 outlay was $600,000. That is a very strange claim. I suspect that if one looked at it very carefully one would see that it is very unlikely. The commitment was due to begin, presumably, some time towards the end of 1989 - that is, for more than half of a full financial year. If that outlay translated to $150,000, how a full year's outlay, surely no more than double that initial $150,000 outlay, could equal $600,000 is a matter of great mystery to me.
What is more, despite Mr Berry's assertions that he intended a full year effect of $600,000, I have been unable, and my department has been unable, to find any evidence whatsoever that that was the intention of the previous Government. Mr Berry says that he intended to spend $600,000, but he made no statement to that effect at any stage in the course of that debate. I think one could reasonably draw the conclusion that Mr Berry is
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .