AICAFMHA:
promoting mental health for young Australians
Australian Infant, Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health Association Ltd
ABN 87 093 479 022
Back to AICAFMHA Homepage / News in Brief Index / Issue 8
Date: 23 January 2002
For immediate release
media release
SANE calls for national inquiry
into care of people with mental illness
SANE Australia, the mental health charity, today called for a Federal parliamentary
inquiry into the care of people with mental illness following recent events around
Australia - the police shooting in Victoria, the escapes from custody in Queensland,
and the shackling of patients in hospital wards in South Australia.
‘These tragic and disturbing events are just the tip of an iceberg and reflect a
mental health system which is clearly under enormous stress,’ says Barbara Hocking,
SANE’s Executive Director. ‘These are not isolated events, but indications of a
system in crisis mode across the country. Sadly, it seems that 10 years after the Burdekin
Inquiry, and after two National Mental Health Plans with a 30% increase in funding through
the 1990s, we have still made very little real progress’.
SANE calls for a comprehensive parliamentary inquiry to ask questions such as –
- Why do so many Australians not receive effective treatment from public mental health systems – often leading to tragic situations?
- Why does Australia spend only around 5% of its health budget on psychiatric services, when other OECD countries allocate closer to 10% ?
- Why is there no coherent Australia-wide system of rehabilitation for people with a psychiatric disability?
- Why are there so few specialist programs to help those with a mental illness and co-existing alcohol/ drug problems?
- Why are family and other carers not routinely provided with education and support?
- Why does Australia still have eight different Mental Health
Acts not in harmony with each other?
SANE Australia
A national charity helping those affected by mental illness through campaigning,
education and research.
The SANE Charter calls for a better life for Australians affected by mental illness –
an end to stigma, access to effective treatments, community support programs and support
for family and other carers.
Comment and interviews
(03) 9682 5933
Back to AICAFMHA Homepage / News in Brief Index / Issue 8
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