Page 2846 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 September 2014
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facility may take out of this facility a few of the most acutely affected, thus easing the burden on the unit. However, the secure unit is not due for completion for some time yet and even when it is it will not miraculously fix issues if there is such a significant number of assaults and incidents at the moment. The secure unit being built will not fix the issue with flaws in the model of care, if there are any, at the adult mental health unit.
A snapshot of staffing levels includes that, according to the ACT Health model of care document, at the end of the 2012-13 financial year the total full-time equivalents in the unit was 79. In this financial year there were 14 staff away from work due to work-related injury, equalling 17.7 per cent of the workforce in the financial year. If the total FTEs at the end of 2013-14 remained at a similar level, then, with 18 staff members away due to work-related injury, this equates to 22.7 per cent of the workforce. We learned from that document also that wards people work 12 hours shifts through the night.
Regarding the number of seclusions, the 2013-14 budget paper, at page 88 under Health Directorate strategic objective No 6, states:
The proportion of mental health clients who are subject to seclusion episodes while being an admitted patient in an ACT public mental health inpatient unit has reduced and is achieving target. This measures the effectiveness of public mental health services in the ACT over time in providing services that minimise the need for seclusion.
In 2012-13, the target was less than three per cent, with an estimated outcome of 1.4 per cent. In the 2014-15 budget statement, the target was less than three per cent, with an estimated outcome increasing to 2.1 per cent. With regard to seclusions—and the numbers are very good—why is the only measure of success for this facility the low number of seclusions and why is there no budget reporting on the success of creating a workplace friendly to employees as well as clients? I would suggest that it is not okay to serve one group well to the determent of the other.
Is it acceptable to lead the nation in reducing seclusions while staff suffer so drastically? No, it is not. The focus needs to be balanced. Both patient care and staff care are equally important and, as an employer, the minister knows well her responsibility to the staff of this facility.
The philosophy of this government is fundamentally flawed when it comes to running facilities such as this. We do have a philosophical problem. They are keen to look after a group in the system they label as victims or potential victims, because of preconceptions of historical practice. They are keen to treat them with perfection, and that is great.
However, the downside of this philosophy is a tendency to take another group and label them with the tag of potential aggressor, and there is little sympathy for the potential aggressor in this philosophy. As a result, the group are treated with diminished respect. The response inevitably is, “They will just have to lump it; they can just put up with it,” because it is a perception that historically they may have held more power in relation to the patient. However, the minister’s slowness to act is telling of callousness and, by her own actions, she has created a new group of victims.
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