Mobile Mental Health Teams A 'last Resort'

Illawarra Mercury

Wednesday October 15, 2008

By ANGELA THOMPSON

THE NSW Government has watered down its pledge to reinstate 24-hour mobile mental health teams in the Illawarra.

The budget commitment was yesterday revealed to be a last resort that would be seldom, if ever, enacted.

NSW Health deputy director-general, strategic development, Dr Richard Matthews told the Budget Estimates 2008-2009 Inquiry a psychiatric emergency care centre was being introduced to Wollongong Hospital, but it would only have an outreach capacity in extreme cases.

Parliament heard the Government's preference was for emergency mental health patients to present to casualty as part of "mainstreaming" mental health.

"Where it is truly an emergency ... then we believe they should come to the emergency department for a full and appropriate assessment," Dr Matthews said.

He added a mobile mental health team may be deployed when called on by police "such as during a siege". The revelations are at odds with a budget promise made in May by then Premier Morris Iemma.

Mr Iemma said the Community Mental Health Emergency Care program would make specialist emergency staff available around the clock to assess and treat people with acute mental health difficulties.

"Patients will still continue to be treated in psychiatric emergency care centres at hospitals, but the Community Mental Health Emergency Care program can provide care at home for patients and take pressure off our hospitals," Mr Iemma said.

His announcement was welcomed by mental health advocates familiar with the plight of Illawarra families, who had little option but to call the police for assistance after the region's mobile mental health response teams were disbanded in 2004.

Yesterday's budget feedback was in reply to questions by Greens MP Lee Rhiannon, who met the Illawarra Mental Health Action Coalition last week.

Ms Rhiannon called on the minister responsible for mental health, Barbara Perry, to clarify the Government's position on "teams that went into the community".

"We have been told that there is a big demand for them, but ... I am getting the impression that there has been a shift in policy," Ms Rhiannon said.

Mrs Perry told Parliament "the best place to support a critical emergency of a mental health matter is in the emergency section of a hospital".

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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