Mental Health Workers Alliance Survey Exposes Holes In System

Front line health, police and emergency workers are being forced to take large chunks of time away from their core work duties to care for mental health patients, the Mental Health Workers Alliance said today.

Inadequate resourcing means police are being called on to transport mental health patients.

A MHWA survey of more than 600 doctors, nurses, police, health and emergency workers has revealed a lack of dedicated resources is causing massive problems for people living with mental illness and for those frontline workers left to pick up the pieces. For example:

• More than 90 percent of police officers said caring for mentally ill people was affecting their ability to do core policing work

• More than 80 percent of nurses estimated the occupancy rates of beds dedicated for mental health patients was 100 percent or above

• More than 60 percent of doctors said they felt pressured to prematurely discharge mental health patients into the community and almost 70 percent were unable to find a beds when needed in the past three months

• Some 80 percent of ambulance officers, hospital registrars, social workers and other health and emergency workers listed bed availability, staffing, and resources as major issues impacting on care for mental illness sufferers.

Labor Council of NSW secretary John Robertson praised the Mental Health Workers Alliance for coming together to ensure workers' voices on the issue would be heard.

"This study shows that government policies on mental health impact not just on those chiefly charged with caring for them but that it affects workers throughout the health and emergency fields.

"A failure to adequately resource the mental health sector is contributing to clogged emergency departments, an insufficient number of community and long-stay facilities, and overburdened police and emergency services."

The Mental Health Workers Alliance is a joint initiative by the Police Association, the NSW Nurses Association, the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation, the Health Services Union, and the Australian Services Union.

LaborNET is proudly created, designed and programmed
by Social Change Online for the Labor Council of NSW
[Credits] [Site Matters]