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Liberals propose to stop Melbourne CBD injecting room and plan to use it to boost mental health services instead

Victorians need a reformed mental health care to avoid trauma brought by pandemic restrictions.

By news@gippsland - 24th June 2021 - Back to News

Last week I received an email from a constituent who shared with me his anguish that he wasn’t able to visit his pregnant wife in hospital. At the time, she was at high risk of losing their unborn child and becoming permanently blind.

Putting mental health care in priority is the most important support every Victorian needs to help recover from the traumatic effects of the pandemic restrictions

Traumatic effect from restrictions

But despite living in a part of Victoria that hasn’t had any COVID cases for a year, they were told COVID restrictions – which were the same statewide, no matter the local situation – prevented them from being together.

This sadly wasn’t a new scenario for Sam. The Wimmera couple had already endured the heartache of a miscarriage through an ectopic pregnancy late last year, which also caused the loss of an ovary and Fallopian tube.

But through this traumatic event, at a time when we need our loved ones most, to hold your hand and provide emotional support, Sam was unable to be with his wife. It is becoming almost a daily occurrence of similar stories shared with me of the heartbreaking cruelty of restrictions in parts of Victoria that simply don’t have any COVID cases.

Long wait on health care

The lockdowns, the time away from our loved ones, being unable to mourn the death of friends and family or celebrate milestones together, job losses – all coming together to turn our way of life, and our livelihoods, on its head. But even before the COVID pandemic, mental health statistics for rural and regional Victoria told a harrowing story with the top ten local government areas with the highest rates of suicide all outside of Melbourne.

There were 713 people who didn’t made it through last year due to suicide. Alarmingly, 97 of these lives lost were young Victorians. There’s no doubt COVID has made the problems worse. Recent figures show that more than 6000 vulnerable Victorians were forced to wait more than eight hours in a hospital emergency room for a mental health bed.

The worsening data comes as the ratio of specialist mental health beds has declined, while almost one in four Victorians under the age of 18 who were admitted to hospital for mental health reasons being readmitted within 28 days of discharge.

Putting mental health care first

Despite all their talk of significant mental health investment, the Andrews Labor Government has been slow to enact the mental health reform that Victorians so desperately need. It’s time to stop talking about fixing Victoria’s mental health crisis and to actually get on and do it.

On Sunday, I announced a plan that will put the mental health of Victorians first. It proposes to use the $40 million Melbourne CBD building (known as ‘Yooralla’) Labor has purchased for its second injecting room to instead boost to our mental health services.

Immediate change needed

The building’s across the road from the Flinders Street public transport hub, meaning all Victorians – not just those living within the tram tracks – could access this crucial service. But this long-term plan must be supported by immediate change that we can implement now to take some of the pressure off all Victorians.

Across Victoria where there simply are no cases of COVID, lockdowns are heartlessly removing people’s ability to manage their own mental health. We can – and we must – end blanket statewide lockdowns by fixing contact tracing, rolling out an online vaccination booking system, deploying rapid testing and only applying lockdown by postcode, and as a last resort.

Making a difference

We must boost confidence and create certainty for our small businesses by releasing the public health advice that restrictions are relying on. These are changes we can make today. They will make a genuine difference in people’s lives, right now, and support better mental health outcomes for us all as we continue to stare down the barrel of a global pandemic.

Pictures from Mental Health Victoria Facebook page.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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