Page 3070 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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individuals and as a community in the way we address mental health issues and those factors that might lead someone to consider then attempt suicide, let alone complete suicide, is something that we are going to have to step up to.
I am not sure there is a sense of urgency in the government about taking up the challenge that was proposed by the CEO of Lifeline. Lifeline knows these issues all too well. When you have the Lifeline CEO saying that, as a city, we need to have this discussion it really is a wake-up call for all of us in regard to the issue of suicide. I knew people that have committed suicide. I have attended funerals with families of people who have committed suicide, as I suspect we all have. They are very sad occasions.
Every time we have another suicide in the ACT and every time we do not take the opportunity to talk about it, to bring it to the fore, to let people who are vulnerable or feeling stressed know that they need to go and talk to somebody—“As a minimum, at least go and talk to Lifeline; discuss the matter with your family, your friends”—the problem will continue. If we as individuals do not have a discussion within our families, within our social groups, within our networks, within our sporting clubs, within our political parties—or any other organisation that we belong to—and collectively look out for each other and individually be there to assist each other, this problem will continue.
The statistics show that suicide does not affect any particular socioeconomic group. It is not the poor, it is not necessarily the rich, it is not the well-educated, it is not the successful, it is not the not-so-successful, it is not the ordinary; it is everyone. Everyone is affected by it.
The fact that Lifeline took the opportunity just after the budget was delivered to put out that statement saying that we do not have the debate, that we do not discuss it and that it is not funded adequately in the budget really says that we as a jurisdiction—and I think probably we as a nation—need to accept the wake-up call that is being delivered by the numbers and try to work together towards addressing it. We all know someone or a family of someone who has committed suicide. Again, in the budget I do not see the commitment to it; I do not see the funding for it. We certainly do not have the discussion often enough about the terrible, terrible thing that is suicide.
Mr Speaker, there are other areas in the health budget that are of concern to me. The minister made much mention the other night of the ACIL Tasman report. ACIL Tasman mentions preventative health. The whole discussion about preventative health is, again, something that the government seems to ignore. If you are serious about reducing the call on the hospital then clearly the best way to do that is not to have people go there. That is not to turn them away because the standard of service is so poor; it is that we turn them away because we have kept them healthier for longer.
I have great admiration for the people who work in the emergency department. The staff there—the nurses, the doctors—are all trying to do their best in difficult circumstances. I have gone up there late at night with my little fellow over the last four years since he was born—the emergency dash to the department for the croup, the ill child and the fevers. The service, as you get to it and as you get into the system to receive that service, is excellent. It is the wait times and it is the pressure. If we are
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