Page 4523 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 31 October 2018
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This bodes well for patients in the adult mental health unit, but is it enough? Unfortunately, we do not really know the answer to that question because ACT Health does not use staff-to-patient ratios in patient management. And does the unit have a full component of specialist psychiatrists? The last time I asked a question on notice about this, the answer was no. They have 4½ FTE psychiatrists, but they do not have the remaining four psychiatric registrars and the three resident medical officers required to make up what Mr Rattenbury describes as the medical staff establishment. I hope that today Mr Rattenbury can update us on the status of the psychiatric registrars and psychiatric resident medical officers, and that we will see a better picture than that which I last saw when I asked a question on notice.
There is an apparent shortage of medical staff, and this does not bode well for patient treatment services. It also does not bode well in a unit that suffers from bed block. Since July 2017 the adult mental health unit has been operating, as a minimum, at full capacity, and from time to time it has been operating at 105 per cent. All of this is aside from the chronic staff shortages in the adolescent mental health unit, where there is one psychiatrist, with locums filling the gap.
There is also the great delay that we are seeing in the establishment of a standalone adolescent mental health building, which will not commence until sometime next calendar year; therefore it will not be taking patients for some time into the future. All of this contributes to the stories I hear of staff under severe pressure. All of it contributes to the stories I hear of suicides and attempted suicides. It speaks to the stories I hear of patients being discharged early and being readmitted. It speaks to the stories I hear of staff being assaulted to the point that they are scared to go to work and they literally fear for their lives. It speaks to the stories I hear of patients having to go interstate for treatment.
Madam Assistant Speaker, in March the preliminary accreditation report for the Canberra Hospital concluded that two of the many unmet standards revealed in that report related to mental health. Both of them placed patients at extreme risk. Mr Rattenbury will tell you today, I am sure, that the ACT has addressed those issues, but we do know that they are in the process of being addressed rather than finally addressed. He will say that the Canberra Hospital has passed its second attempt at accreditation with flying colours, but there are still issues outstanding in relation to ligature points, and I have spoken to Mr Rattenbury in this place and elsewhere about my concerns about the time it has taken to address these issues. The fact remains that the procedures to manage the risks are so fundamental, so entrenched in the system, and they should never have become an issue for accreditation assessment in the first place.
There has been a real problem for Mr Rattenbury in the operation of the inpatient mental health system. I understand that in May this year he commissioned an independent external review of mental health inpatient services in ACT Health. I understand that that review has been received, and that Mr Rattenbury has received recommendations as a result of that review. But it is a long time since that review was undertaken, and some of this motion today calls for Mr Rattenbury to table that report and to respond to the recommendations in that report so that we have transparency about how our inpatient mental health system is working.
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