AMA Calls for Boost To Rural Psychiatric Services

AMA Vice President, Dr Choong-Siew Yong, a paediatric psychiatrist who spends time in rural practice, said today that specialist psychiatric services outside metropolitan areas are limited and, in some States, virtually non-existent.

Dr Yong said this places a heavy burden on the rural GPs who provide mental health services and who need to be given much more support.

"Psychiatric specialists are in extreme short supply in rural areas and there is a heavy reliance on overseas trained doctors to meet growing patient demand for services," Dr Yong said.

"Many patients have to be transported to metropolitan or major regional centres, and are often experiencing severe psychiatric episodes outside an appropriate care environment.

"The regionalised structure of health services and lack of beds sometimes means that a patient cannot be sent to the closest psychiatric services.

"This leads to distress for the patient and their family and contributes to unwanted and harmful disruptions to continuity of care.

"Care is further complicated because transport of these patients is often very difficult due to a lack of cooperation between police and ambulance services. Ambulances often need a police escort when transporting patients, and this is not always available.

"Police often have no choice but to deliver psychiatric patients to general Emergency Departments, where there is a lack of nursing staff with appropriate training in psychiatric care, and this can compound the problem.

"With no signs of drought conditions abating and with water shortages worsening, it is generally expected that the call on rural psychiatric services will increase significantly as farming families are placed under greater stress," Dr Yong said.

The AMA Federal Council has adopted the following resolution:

That Federal Council note with concern the state of psychiatric services in rural areas and requests the President to lobby for more funding from Commonwealth and State Governments in order to provide additional psychiatry training positions, greater support for general practitioners and psychiatrists in the provision of care, and to encourage the provision of mental health services locally.

That Federal Council request the President to call on Governments to review the integration of police, ambulance and psychiatric services, especially in rural areas, in order to provide greater support for psychiatric services and to ensure the timely transport of patients to an appropriate care environment.