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Mental Health Services Under Pressure
AMA Victoria President Dr Mark Yates is calling on the State Government to provide additional funding in the May budget, to ensure the increasing pressure on mental health services is alleviated and patients are treated more effectively.
Dr Yates said readmittance rates for psychiatric patients to public hospitals prove the current system is not working and at crisis point.
“There is extreme pressure on every available mental health bed with unsustainably high occupancy levels.
“In some cases treatment for patients in these facilities takes a number of weeks. If there were more beds available, patients could remain in hospital longer and be more thoroughly treated. This would then reduce the number of patients requiring readmittance.
“While mental health services received increased funding in the last budget, because of chronic under funding previously, additional funding of at least $80 million is needed to ensure the challenges of this growing sector are met.”
AMA spokesman and psychiatrist Dr Bill Pring said there was extreme pressure for beds in the public sector which often meant patients were rushed through the system.
“People with psychosis or major depression require two to three weeks in hospital before being discharged. However, because of the high demand on beds, patients are often being given much shorter stints in hospital, which results in a high number of readmitted patients.
“In the public sector there are so many people suffering from severe illness coming in all the time. However, it is a circular issue, if people were able to stay in hospital and receive treatment for longer, it would probably reduce the number of people being re-admitted and therefore reduce the pressure on hospital beds.”
Besides increasing the amount of time patients are able to stay in hospital, Dr Pring said more community support programs and step-down facilities would help ease the pressure on mental health facilities.
“‘Step-down’ facilities would act as a stepping stone for patients with chronic conditions, who no-longer need to be in acute facilities, but still need intensive treatment before moving back into the community,” he said.
Dr Pring said community support programs needed to be improved greatly, because often patients needed intensive follow-up and continuous management over many years to ensure they recovered properly.
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