Page 1261 - Week 05 - Thursday, 4 June 2020
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forgotten. We owe it to them. We owe it to them to make sure their voice is heard because this vindictive government is not listening.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Original question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative.
Mental health—acute care capacity
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.00): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes:
(a) the importance of government providing a public mental health system that is efficient, timely, effective and safe for patients and staff; and
(b) Mr Rattenbury MLA has been the Minister for Mental Health for almost four years and conditions for staff and patients have deteriorated over that time;
(2) further notes:
(a) the Adult Mental Health Unit (AMHU) at the Canberra Hospital has been operating at and above capacity for at least 2017-18 and 2018-19;
(b) funding of four additional beds in the AMHU in 2019-20 is providing little, if any, relief to capacity problems;
(c) the average waiting time for admission to the AMHU was 16.2 hours in 2018-19, 140 percent higher than the average of 6.7 hours over the previous five years;
(d) data released by the Australian Institute of Health Welfare shows that, in 2017-18, only 43 percent of mental health presentations to ACT emergency departments were seen on time, compared to the national average of 67 percent, and represents the worst performance measure in Australia;
(e) the number of people waiting in emergency departments to be admitted to the AMHU increased by 140 percent in 2018-19;
(f) the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine says that mental health patients in emergency departments take longer to treat than other patients;
(g) increasing mental health presentations and wait times put additional pressure on overall emergency department performance;
(h) in the years 2012 to 2017, there was an annual average of 29 assaults on mental health staff, with 109 assaults in 2018, an increase of 274 percent;
(i) since 2008-09, data in the 2020 Productivity Commission Report on Government Services (ROGS) shows a significantly increasing trend of patients with mental health issues who return for further treatment within 28 days of discharge;
(j) the ROGS found that, in 2017-18:
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