Page 641 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 2018
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problem because, and I quote, “We have not tackled the idea of having effective services working collaboratively together”.
Many members would be aware of Ms Wholley’s and other principals’ passionate advocacy for joined up and responsive mental health services to support schools in the front line addressing youth mental health. Canberra’s principals, as well as the young people in our city and their families, are still waiting for those joined-up services. This problem has not been addressed by Minister Rattenbury.
Despite budget funding, progress on the child and adolescent mental health facility has been glacially slow. Last week you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and our colleague Mrs Kikkert spoke in the Assembly about specific cases where our vulnerable young people were forced interstate at a huge cost to their families to obtain services that are not provided here. When those people return to the ACT they cannot always find appropriate services to meet their ongoing needs. The shortcomings in the mental health system become huge chasms which are unnavigable in the haze and anxiety caused by mental health issues.
One of the problems that Minister Rattenbury has to tackle is inadequate facilities that cannot meet the demand. Only last week we heard the minister admit that last year the adult mental health unit was operating at 105 per cent for lengthy periods. This, combined with a chronic lack of mental health specialists such as psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health nurses, means that we cannot effectively meet the demand for acute mental health services.
Here are some of the things that ROGS 2018 had to say about the state of mental health services in the ACT: in 2015-16, the ACT had the highest proportion of people in Australia using specialised public mental health services. But, at the same time, failures in health data meant that we could not publish data on the proportion of people who had a significant improvement in their clinical mental health outcomes who were discharged from the public hospital psychiatric inpatient unit.
To put it simply, Madam Deputy Speaker, we do not have enough data to tell if we are doing a good job. The ROGS data also shows a severe decline in the provision of acute mental health services. Over the last 10 years the number of patient days per 1,000 people for admitted acute mental health care has been increasing. It went from 48.5 to 64.9, an increase of more than 30 per cent. However, the number of beds per 100,000 people has actually fallen from 20.7 to 18.6, a fall of 17 per cent.
On the upside, the number of full-time equivalent direct care staff per 100,000 people has risen marginally, from 28.2 to 32.7, up 16 per cent. Our staff numbers, however, remain well below the national average, which stood at a little over 50 per cent.
Minister Rattenbury likes to deflect these issues by saying that not all services should be delivered in an acute environment and that we have a great system of community care. Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, we do punch above our weight when it comes to community care. The ROGS data shows that. But we are clearly lagging at the acute end and no amount of deflection will disguise that or fix the problem. Last week’s admission from Minister Rattenbury about the acute mental health unit operating at
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