Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott

Federal Election 2010

Mental Health Plan

Victor P Taffa

The Federal Coalition will provide $1.5 billion to expand frontline services to cut the burden of Mental Health disorders within Australia.

The Federal Coalition’s Real Action Plan for Better Mental Health will deliver 20 new Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centres (based on the EPPIC model), 60 additional youth headspace sites and 800 acute and sub acute early intervention beds.

The Early Psychosis Intervention Centres and headspace sites will be located in metropolitan and regional areas across Australia and mobile services will be provided in each state and territory.

This is a major increase in frontline services. The number of headspace sites will increase from the current 30 to 90 and there will be a twenty-fold increase in Early Psychosis Intervention Centres – there is currently only one in Australia, located in metropolitan Melbourne.

The provision of 800 acute and sub acute beds linked to the Early Psychosis Intervention Centres will take pressure off the nation’s public hospitals and emergency departments and provide better care to the patient in the community.

Funding will be made available in the first year of Coalition government with the Early Psychosis and Intervention Centres and headspace sites opening progressively through to 2013-14.

Early psychosis intervention is recognised as the next priority in addressing Australia’s mental health challenges and was a key recommendation of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission.

Mental illness most often first manifests in teenagers and young adults in the age ranges of 12 to 24. Early intervention is critical to help these young people to deal with their illness and regain their health.

The Coalition’s Real Action Plan for Better Mental Health will target these younger suffers of mental disorders.

The ‘EPPIC’ model was pioneered in Australia by current Australian of the Year Professor Patrick McGorry. Headspace is Australia’s National Youth Mental Health Foundation.

The first headspace sites were established by the Coalition in 2006 when it provided the single biggest investment ever of $1.9 Billion for Mental Healthcare. These commitments will build substantially upon that precedent and up to an additional 250,000 young people will be helped through this expansion to headspace.

Mental illness will in some way impact on almost half the Australian population over a lifetime. After cancer and heart disease it is the next major burden of disease within the country.

In 2006 the former Coalition Government made the single biggest investment in mental health by any government in Australian history. $1.9 billion was committed over a five year period for services for people with mental illness, their families and carers.

Despite continually talking about its importance, the Labor Government has largely ignored mental health. Labor’s failure to significantly boost mental health funding as part of the $7.3 billion so-called health ‘reforms’ was branded as “inexcusable” by the Mental Health Council of Australia.

In contrast, the Coalition has a strong track record of taking mental healthcare seriously and providing the necessary funding to provide necessary services to those suffering a mental disorder.

Expanding frontline services will meet the next challenges in Mental Health.

Editor Victor P Taffa has suffered from Mental Illness and on two occasions was admitted to Macquarie Hospital, North Ryde Sydney.

The first period of Hospitalisation in 2003 was only for 11 days however in 2010 the period was 7 weeks.

The standard of care was no better in 2010 than in 2003 and it has taken a while to recover emotionally from the shameful way in which the mentally ill while hospitalised.

This announcement by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is Positive News.