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Funding needed for mental health care coordinators
13 October 2010.
Severely mentally ill Victorians living in the community are missing out on public housing, basic medical care and drug and alcohol support services because of a shortage of mental health care coordinators, AMA Victoria President Dr Harry Hemley said today.
"Our system is failing severely mentally ill Victorians living in the community," Dr Hemley said. "Some of the most vulnerable Victorians are falling through the cracks and missin g out on the most basic housing, medical and social care.
"We’re not talking about people with mental illness who can hold down a job, pay the rent and bills, and keep tabs on things like doctors appointments. These are people suffering from psychosis, schizophrenia and paranoia who need extra assistance to access a range of services.
"Aside from coordinating their psychiatric care, mental health care coordinators pull together housing, healthcare, counselling, and other social services to ensure severely mentally ill Victorians can enjoy a reasonable quality of life while living in the community. "
Dr Hemley said the Victorian Government’s own mental health reform blueprint Because Mental Health Matters recommended funding for mental health care coordinators to ensure severely mentally ill Victorians had access to the services they needed, but the government had yet to commit enough funding to fill the gaps.
"With just over six weeks to the Victorian election, the Government and Opposition must commit to a plan for reforming the mental health system and improving community mental health care. Investing in mental health care coordinators is a good place to start."
Dr Hemley said the deinstitutionalisation of the mental health system in the 1980s meant severely mentally ill Victorians who would have been cared for in psychiatric hospitals were living independently in the community or in assisted housing.
"Community based mental health care is certainly a more humane way of caring for acutely mentally ill Victorians but we need to make sure we’re not substituting comprehensive hospital care for substandard community care, or no care at all," he said.
"In terms of hospital care, our public psychiatric wards are struggling to cope with the demand for beds. Our emergency departments are seeing more and more acutely unwell patients needing admission.
"If patients living in the community have access to quality mental health care and good coordination, they will be less likely to experience a psychiatric crisis and require hospital admission."
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