Inept policy impacts on mental health
Federal and state governments continue to fail to adequately address mental health issues, say leading mental health professionals in the current edition of the Medical Journal of Australia.
In their article, National mental health reform: less talk, more action, the authors, including the Executive Director of the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Research Institute, Professor Ian Hickie, say a profound reluctance by these governments to invest in new programs, while continuing to overspend on outmoded forms of practice, showed “both inept policy and poor practice”.
They say that, despite recent initiatives, the mental health system remains in crisis, with most people suffering mental illness still unable to access the help they need.
“The process of deinstitutionalisation has never been properly funded, leaving the needs of people with chronic mental illness, including housing and community support, unmet,” they said.
Under the Better Access Program introduced in 2006, $500 million dollars was committed to new psychological services. However, access to such services remains a major problem, due to a lack of mental health specialists in rural and remote areas, low bulk billing rates, and a broad failure of young people to access the system despite 75 percent of mental illness emerging by 25 years of age.
The authors say that the Program, sadly, abandoned the structures of earlier initiatives which had placed a high priority on evidence-based models of collaborative care, which would be more likely to help people with mental health issues receive all the different types of assistance that they needed (eg, housing and employment, as well as treatment).
The authors called for urgent funding and action in six key areas:
- new organisational models of collaborative practice
- early intervention, with an emphasis on youth services
- improved employment levels for people with mental disorders
- initiatives linking accommodation support with clinical services
- sustained e-health information and related clinical services, and
- independent national reporting of agreed health and social outcomes and mental health service performance.
“With 65 percent of Australians now missing out on care, the challenge is for the Australian Government to continue to drive the states and territories towards reform,” they said.
The statements or opinions that are expressed in the MJA reflect the views of the authors and do not represent the official policy of the AMA unless that is so stated.
CONTACTS: Professor Ian Hickie 02 9351 0810 or 0438 810 231