Workers' action for mental health

Front-line health, police and emergency workers are being 
forced off core duties to care for mental health patients and a 
new alliance has been formed to do something about it. A survey 
of more than 600 doctors, nurses, police, health, community 
services, and emergency workers revealed a lack of dedicated 
resources was causing problems for people living with mental 
illness and the workers left to pick up the pieces.

Survey results, released by the new Mental Health Workers' 
Alliance (MHWA), showed:

* 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 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.

As well as highlighting what is wrong with the mental health 
system the Mental Health Workers' Alliance has a plan for putting 
the problems right. As part of its Five Step Program for a Saner 
Mental Health System the Alliance is calling for:

1. Funding for mental health by increasing the mental health 
proportion of the State health budget to at least 12 percent, as 
recommended by the Mental Health Council of Australia, and for 
mental health expenditure to be transparent and quarantined.

2. Better resourcing for long-term supported accommodation 
options for all people with mental illnesses, including homeless 
people.

3. Increasing the capacity of inpatient units and community 
services to guarantee 24-hour access to those in need of 
treatment.

4. Crisis care, including 24-hour mental health expertise in 
emergency departments and community teams, to alleviate pressure 
on front line emergency services.

5. Addressing the problems of recruitment and retention in the 
sector by providing incentives to enter employment, enhancing 
access to training schemes, and providing support for learning 
and development opportunities.

Unions 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 MHWA is a joint initiative of the Nurses Association, the 
Police Association, the Health Services Union, the Australian 
Services Association, and the Australian Salaried Medical 
Officers Federation.