Page 1579 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2016
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As a government and as custodians, we clearly have responsibilities to protect individuals who are patients in the unit from harm, whether that be harm from others or harm that they may seek to do to themselves. In addition, as employers, government has a clear legal responsibility to staff to ensure that they are kept safe at work. That is also important for those who come to the unit and go about their lawful business as visitors, whether they be accredited visitors performing statutory duties or people visiting loved ones.
I also bring to the attention of members provisions in this bill that advance the physical health care of people admitted to the unit. Inpatient mental health services all over the world have historically been criticised for neglecting the physical health of the people they care for, thinking only of their mental illness. The Assembly has received multiple reports over recent years about how people with severe mental illness have lower life expectancy, higher rates of morbidity and less healthy years of life. This bill strongly builds on the government’s desire to improve the health of the entire person, obligating those responsible for the operation of the unit to ensure access to wider physical health services for people which is comparable to what people in the broader community would expect.
The government’s view is that this bill is necessary for the operation of a facility like the secure mental health unit. Being the first of its kind in the ACT and Australia, the bill articulates a dedicated legislative framework of how secure mental health facilities should operate and the legal standards that will drive their operation.
The bill performs a number of vital functions. The bill provides clarity for all who have an interest in the operation of the unit and constitutes a clear statement of powers, rights and responsibilities. It will provide a greater degree of guidance to clinical staff on the extent of their powers, what actions they can take to protect the safety of facilities and the checks and balances on those powers that they are subject to. It also provides a clear legislative structure for patients, carers and their advocates to base their experiences in secure mental health facilities against and to challenge their experiences if felt necessary.
The bill has been drafted in a manner that authorises the Director-General, ACT Health, to produce directions, which are subordinate instruments that will be notifiable. This is a model that is in use to support the Corrections Management Act 2007 and allows ACT Health to have the ability to outline matters of operational detail in directions, as opposed to the primary legislation. This will allow for rapid change to directions if that becomes necessary, which would not be possible by relying on the primary legislation alone. All directions, unless there are significant security concerns in making their content public, will be placed on the legislation register.
Facilities such as the new secure mental health unit will deal with challenging situations on most days of their operation and the scenarios that engage competing human rights will occur regardless of whether we adopt this bill or not. This bill will provide a firm backdrop to guide the handling of those scenarios in a manner in which we would wish to see them approached.
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