Did you miss SBS Insight this week? The topic was mental health and a timely one for the upcoming election.
Guests included:
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Peter Dutton
Peter Dutton is the Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing. He recently joined Opposition leader Tony Abbott to announce the Coalition’s Real Action Plan for Better Mental Health. The policy promised that if the Coalition is elected it will allocate $1.5 billion towards an expansion of mental health services. He is the Federal Member for Dickson in Queensland
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Mark Butler
Mark Butler is the Parliamentary Secretary for Health. He is the Federal Member for Port Adelaide in South Australia.The Government has announced a $277 million package focused on suicide prevention, men and young people.
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John Mendoza
Professor John Mendoza recently resigned as the Chair of the Government’s National Advisory Council on mental health. He quit over what he says was the Government’s lack of vision and commitment to mental health.
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Rachel Siewert
Rachel Siewert is the spokesperson for Health and Ageing for The Greens and a Senator for Western Australia. Senator Siewert has also been the Chair of the Senate Community Affairs inquiry on suicide and suicide prevention.
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Elaine Goddard
Elaine is a carer for her 24 year old son who was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 17. She says mental health services are stretched for staff and resources and don’t provide enough support to families like hers. Elaine lives in the marginal electorate of Macquarie in NSW and says mental health policy will decide her vote in the upcoming election.
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Professor Patrick McGorry
The Australian of the Year for 2010 Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry is a renowned leader in the field of youth mental health.
His pioneering work, particularly in the area of early psychosis, has won him both national and international recognition.
As well as being a professor of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne, he is the Executive Director of Orygen Youth Health, a world-renowned youth mental health organisation and is on the board of Headspace, an initiative of the National Youth Mental Health Foundation.
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Glenn Pilley
Glenn Pilley has been selling The Big Issue for more than a year. Glenn has had mental health problems which went untreated for six years. He has experienced homelessness and has spent time in jail. He is back on track these days but says there is nothing in the Opposition’s policy to help him and older consumers.
You can view the entire epidode
Read the comments (over 400!)
Its about time we had this constructive focus on mental health in the media – this alone does a lot to reduce stigma.
- John Brogden’s view that mental health should be treated the same as physical health is spot on – how did it ever get to be otherwise ??!!
- Carers and advocates seem unanimous on the appalling state of the mental health system that delivers poor outcomes. Refer my graphic summation of what outcomes the current system produces fyi : http://communities.mentalwakeup.com/tiki-index.php?page=Mental%20Health%20Care%20Status%20Summary
- Carers, advocates, consumers still unsure even with the libs restructuring, whether this will be done with too much focus on medications and not a multimodal or heterogeneous approach to treatment. If its mostly focussed on medications, the desired outcomes wont happen.
- Fireside chats/simplistic talking therapy also made clear as not a solution for everyone, confirming its a broader treatment issue. Carers/advocates know this, but mental health experts do not appear to be giving this same message so still lots of uncertainty about what will be done and again appears carers/advocates not being listened to.
- Labour’s focus on suicide prevention show they dont understand mental health – suicide is a symptom of a bigger problem, so preventing suicide only hits the extreme acute end of the health issue. Labour has no idea.
- Current system’s focus on medication, produces poor outcomes and puts people in to forced detention like treatment regimes, either in acute hospital or on CTO’s, which affects their mental health even further. People aren’t clear on how restructuring will change this appalling situation.
- Mature age people with mental health problems raised as a big concern, but was ignored by all parties. Why ?
- Libs by far have a better solution – detail not clear though. Labour still at sharp end acute treatment only focus which is short term band aid approach and will shift mental health problems elsewhere.
As a past carer, Thats my perception/opinion of the program and glancing through some of the comments.
hi i work in ballarat.
Last year i’d heard we had attracted a lot of $ for the headspace program,which was not or a little publicised within our mental health service?The new manager of this service has now been filled, A lot of colleagues were unaware of our headspace funding or when it was to start up,or under what banner it will run and still are a little vague about it. WOW!
There are many theroputical practice models used within our services thesedays and most seem to be good and do work; yet we seem to be going around in circles asking a lot of the same ?’s, changing the service delivery/models and it can become a little(lot) daunting and frustrating. And not only for the COAL FACE SERVICE PROVIDERS, ALSO FOR CLIENTS, AND ESPECIALLY THEIR FAMILIES/FRIENDS.
SOME POINTS OFTEN OVERLOOKED
1 WHAT SORT OF WORLD DO WE LIVE IN TODAY-
we can go on forever, from the demise of spiritual and mental planes to the ever increasing physical/monetary stimulus leading into
social pressures,responabilities,expectations placed placed upon us by our LEADERS in the name of moving forward- often monetary/egocentrical gains for those of higher stature or those moving towards this destination. eg if you cant keep up see you later – moving on
2 BETTER SERVICES IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT
3 LITTLE HOPE-
LOOK AT OUR LOCAL / WORLD NEWS mostly bad- doom and gloom
Poor ethical leadership from those in power and not to mention the squandering of $ meant for mental health(though lots for reseach l believe), and other health/community programs.
Widening of gaps between social classes, and how their treatment gets delivered
Hinderances to mental health performances are inflexible program models,egocentrical leadership and budget. Add increased paperwork, communication inadequacies,loss of keeping it simple and lastly as in all work places, some people dont care,some,again are egocentrical and others are lazy, or a mix of each other.
This is how l have seen things and l’m sure others would agree,
cheers albert