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Greg Hunt’s funding for mental health is welcomed as it is desperately needed, however deciding which services it goes to is another matter.
Decisions about investment need a national vision for prevention and early intervention, and to be coordinated and based on evidence. Giving funds to Primary Health Networks for care that are not integrated with emergency departments and public hospitals and does not achieve better health outcomes or track patient wellbeing, will be money down the drain.
Mental illness is a major health and social policy issue, and emergency departments are struggling with a lack of resources to respond to people in mental health crisis. States and Territories need to step up and boost hospital resources.
Mandatory reporting of cases involving unacceptable emergency department waiting times for specialised mental health care, such as the 24 hour notifications recently introduced in Western Australia, needs to be adopted across the country.
Dr Simon Judkins
President
Australasian College for Emergency Medicine
This letter was sent to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday, January 17, 2019.
This letter was published by The Age on Saturday, January 19, 2019.