Page 2560 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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more widespread accessing of psychologists. The creation of the National Mental Health Commission in 2012 was also a significant milestone.
Many initiatives have been introduced to raise awareness of those who may be living with mental health needs, including R U OK Day, mental health awareness week and Hat Day, all designed to raise awareness and reduce the stigma that has been in the past attached to people who suffer with mental illness. All these things are good and worthwhile.When the national mental health strategy was endorsed in 1992 one of the key aims was to, where possible, prevent the development of mental disorder, but we seem to still be so heavily focused on the treatment of mental health issues rather than on preventative measures. We need to look at methods that are focused on prevention, as well as those that serve the needs of people who are already dealing with a mental health concern.
That is a view on where we are at as a community as a whole. Here in the ACT I understand that we deal with the highest rate of mental and behavioural problems in Australia per capita, and there continues to be a lack of services. The Auditor-General’s report into the delivery of mental health services to older persons in 2010 identified a lack of planning and coordination of services with community organisations, inconsistencies in conducting suicide risk assessments, weakness in monitoring and reviewing individual people and ambiguous entry and exit criteria. Hopefully, some work has been done on this area since.
There also appears to be a lack of staffing across mental health services in general. I am concerned that it may be impossible to adequately staff the increased services that are planned for the mental health area of government service provision. Clearly it is not just a matter of funding because, aside from the Northern Territory, we spend more on health per capita than any other jurisdiction in the nation. So there are several concerns regarding the additional mental health facility which we canvassed through the estimates process and which I will outline here as well.
The government has been promising the secure mental health facility for many years. It is agreed this additional facility is needed. It was initially promised in 2005 and was then re-announced in 2008. By the 2011-12 budget, the project appeared to have been dumped. In 2013 Ms Gallagher had shelved plans for a high-security facility and was looking at the currently proposed model of 25 beds; with 15 beds being medium security and 10 beds being low. The original cost for the first iteration of the facility was $11 million, and the suggested cost is now $44 million. This is an increase of four times the original cost for a lower security facility.
We have continued to ask questions about how the building of this facility is being managed, and I add my voice to that of Jeremy Hanson, who said last year that it has been an appallingly managed process. There are now drawings of the look and proposed layout of the new facility, but they are yet to be finalised. With the completion date currently set at just two years away, I hope the new facility can actually be delivered near to budget, because it cannot be built on time as it has already taken a decade to work up the drawings.
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