Health and Community Services Union
| Press Release: Without Funding Mental Health Strategy Won’t Deliver |
|
The Heath and Community Services Union (HACSU) has raised concerns about the lack of identifiable funding commitments in the 10 year Mental Health Strategy that was released today. Whilst HACSU supports the broad thrust of the strategy to include a whole of government approach and welcomes the focus on early prevention, children and youth, housing and connecting services. The Union said that the Strategy will fail to materialise into action if the government fails to provide real growth in funding to match the goals and aspirations of the strategy.HACSU State Secretary Lloyd Williams said we acknowledge and support the Minister Lisa Neville’s personal effort and commitment to mental health in coordinating the 10 year strategy, however the strategy remains broad and aspirational and we are concerned that the strategy specifically notes that 'these proposals do not imply the commitment... to additional financial or human resources' 'Victoria’s mental health services are in an acute state of crisis here and now! We will look to the State Budget with interest in respect to financial support for the strategy and in particular its impact on the supply of acute and secure care beds in Melbourne’s outer suburbs and regional Victoria and support for community clinicians in dealing with the unsustainable number of people they are expected to treat in the community' Lloyd Williams said today. 'The governments own evidence shows that 44% of people with a serious mental illness are not receiving treatment' said Mr Williams 'What Victoria needs is a comprehensive demand management strategy for adult and aged services, failure to deal with the immediacy of these issues will mean that people will continue to miss out, waiting times in our emergency departments will continue to grow and families will remain under pressure.' 'It is good to see some concrete proposals on workforce particularly in respect to the immediate short term recruitment issues and we welcome the proposal to establish an Institute of Mental Health Workforce Development and Innovation, building workforce supply and capacity is the foundation to expansion and quality service delivery' |