Page 3151 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 22 August 2017
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Particularly mindful of the significant number of Indigenous detainees in the AMC, I am very conscious of the opportunity to intervene in people’s health while they are in custody and provide opportunities to improve health as part of an overall emphasis on rehabilitation. Recently I was pleased to announce that the government has partnered with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community provider Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service to develop a family-focused response to address the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our justice system.
Again, it comes back to the similar point I just made about the focus of mental health services. We need to make sure that we have got the right services focused on the right people. I think, particularly in this case, partnering with Winnunga is a positive opportunity to ensure that we are delivering our services in a way that is most effective for the client group. Using the expertise of Winnunga and the underlying resources of government, I think we can produce the best possible outcome.
I would also like to speak to the investment in Dhulwa. The budget delivers almost $14 million to expand services to include seven new rehabilitation beds at the Dhulwa mental health unit. Dhulwa makes no differentiation in admitted patients on the basis of their status within the criminal justice system, apart from observing any necessary requirements imposed by legislation or security needs. I would also like to reflect on the fact that that is a new facility. It has been designed to fit into a particular part of the spectrum of mental health services in the ACT.
It has been a welcome addition to the mental health capability in the territory and I think the addition of this funding is designed to open up more beds at Dhulwa as part of the staged rollout of that facility. We need to be very careful in monitoring that facility as it comes on stream, to ensure that it is working well, that it is providing the patient outcomes that we need, that staff are operating in a safe environment—all those sorts of considerations that the ACT takes on in a service that it has not provided previously. We need to monitor that very closely.
I would like to turn to some of the comments made by Ms Lee, on behalf of Mrs Jones, when it comes to justice health services in particular. Whilst the delivery was different today, coming from Ms Lee, there was no difference in the exaggeration and hyperbole that we normally hear from Mrs Jones on some of these matters, on what are complex and difficult issues.
There was an observation about changes to methadone delivery at the AMC. I was surprised by the observations that were made today. To the best of my knowledge, Mrs Jones has not asked for a briefing, but what I can assure colleagues across the chamber is that if anybody would like to have a detailed discussion about the changes to methadone delivery at the AMC I am more than happy for the justice health team to sit down and go through it in some detail. There are a number of quite specific points and, rather than go through them all today, I would like to offer that opportunity for members to avail themselves of all the detail and to be able to ask questions. I am very happy to provide that opportunity.
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