Motions

Coronavirus, Mental Health

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Frome) (11:01): I move:

That this house establish a select committee to inquire into and report upon the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of South Australians, with particular regard to—

(a) the impacts of social isolation on mental health and wellbeing;

(b) the stress and anxiety caused by the sense of uncertainty and disruption to daily life;

(c) particular impacts on vulnerable and disadvantaged South Australians, including implications for models of care and social support;

(d) particular impacts of job losses, business closures and economic recession on mental health and wellbeing;

(e) mental health presentations in the context of the pandemic and implications for policy, programs and service delivery;

(f) rates of suicide, self-harm and substance abuse in the context of the pandemic, and implications for policy, programs and service delivery;

(g) measures taken, or that ought to be taken, to help South Australians to proactively manage mental wellbeing in the context of the pandemic;

(h) policy and program responses taken, or that ought to be taken, to address mental health and wellbeing challenges in the context of the pandemic;

(i) the efficacy of the government and community responses to date; and

(j) any other relevant manner.

Mr Speaker, 2020 has been a year like few others. The sudden onset of a global pandemic and the impact of the lockdowns, travel bans and other measures to tackle it have had impacts on daily life that few of us will forget in the years to come. We do not yet know what the endgame will be. This virus, which the Chief Public Health Officer has repeatedly described as 'highly transmittable', seems set to be with us for some time to come.

We are earnestly hoping for a vaccine and we all know that, even with the best efforts, there is always going to be an element of luck in every medical breakthrough. We cannot be certain when or if a vaccine will become available. I am informed, for example, that following the 1919-20 flu pandemic—the deadliest pandemic in recorded human history in terms of absolute numbers—it took another quarter of a century for the first seasonal flu vaccine to become available.

After millions of deaths over 1919 and 1920, later waves were less virulent and subsided into the regular seasonal flu because of acquired immunity long before a vaccine came to the market. Indeed, it is perhaps easy to forget that the world has lived with pandemic-scale diseases such as cholera, influenza and the plague for centuries without the benefit of vaccine. Even today, HIV remains a pandemic-scale disease across the globe.

Humanity has lived through pandemics before and will find a way to live through this one. As with previous pandemics, or indeed others that remain current, the key to our response will be adaption. Already, we have seen dramatic changes to public administration and the delivery of programs to the community. Barriers that once seemed insurmountable have fallen and ideological objections have been set aside.

The federal budget and state budget both exemplify this trend, but it is clear that on 1,001 fronts there will be more changes to come. It is incumbent upon us all as public policymakers, legislators and elected representatives to embrace these opportunities as they emerge, to seek to chart a new course for the delivery of public policy and services for our community in the face of this extraordinary crisis.

I turn to the substance of the motion that I bring to the house today. Australia has responded far better than many nations to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it was touch and go at some stages, by and large governments have acted in a timely fashion to arrest the spread of the disease and to mitigate the immediate impacts of public health measures, such as social distancing, travel restrictions and business controls, on the economic life of the community. This is not to deny that there are things that we could have done better, of course, nor that there are legitimate differences in opinion as to how things should be done in future.

We all have done well and that should be well recognised; however, one of the areas that has perhaps received less attention has been the impact on mental health. Fear, worry and stress are normal responses to perceived or real threats and at times when we are faced with uncertainty or the unknown, so it is normal and understandable that people are experiencing fear in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Added to the fear of contracting the virus in a pandemic such as COVID-19 are the significant changes to our daily lives as our movements are restricted in support of efforts to contain and slow down the spread of this virus. Faced with the new realities of working from home, unemployment and underemployment, business shutdowns, homeschooling of children and lack of physical contact with other family members, friends and colleagues, it is important that we look after our mental health as well as our physical health. As we adapt to this crisis, we must also adapt to this impact.

It is important to acknowledge that the way we have conversations about mental health and the services for mental health are continuing to evolve. We have come a long way since I was a youngster, but there remains an active public policy debate about how mental health should be addressed as part of our healthcare system. It is good that we continue to have these discussions, and they are even more important now. I do not profess to be an expert, although I have had my own experiences with mental health that have shaped my values and interest in this important area of public policy; however, even a cursory review reveals there is much more to unpack.

Some have described the mental health impacts of the pandemic as a hidden epidemic or even a third wave, and the underlying data paints a picture that should be a concern for all of us. According to The Lancet, one of the world's premier medical journals, in its November editorial there is now mounting evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic is having a monumental impact with 'effects on the mental health and wellbeing of populations worldwide'.

From studies into more recent pandemics, such as Ebola and SARS, we know mental health impacts can include widespread panic and anxiety, depression resulting from the deaths of friends, family or colleagues, and stigmatisation and social exclusion of survivors. One meta-analysis has found depressed mood, anxiety, impaired memory and insomnia were present in up to 42 per cent of cases of precursor coronavirus pandemics, SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and that these symptoms continue beyond recovery.

We should also recognise the mental health impacts of the pandemic on our frontline workers who, with increased workload and trauma, are more susceptible to stress, burnout, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. In the longer term, we can only speculate what the impacts could be. We know, for example, that non-pharmaceutical interventions, although essential, have led to physical isolation particularly of at-risk groups, disruptions to services and widespread job losses. Disruptions to services disproportionately impact at-risk groups, such as people with pre-existing mental health conditions or on lower incomes.

Recently, to mark World Mental Health Day on 10 October, the World Health Organization released the results of a survey of the impact of COVID-19 on mental health, neurological and substance use services in 130 countries around the world. Conducted from June to August 2020, the survey finds the pandemic has disrupted or halted critical mental health services in 93 per cent of countries worldwide. Reasons for disruption were various and included redeployment of health workers to COVID-19 responses, use of mental health or treatment facilities for COVID-19 quarantine or simply not enough funding to start with.

When we look beyond our borders, it is perhaps tempting to discount the impacts of the pandemic on the mental health of South Australians. We have, after all, experienced nothing like what Victorians have just emerged from: a lockdown that must have seemed endless. The stresses and anxieties COVID-19 has created here in South Australia can seem to pale by comparison, but it is clear, even without direct lockdowns, that the mental health impacts of this pandemic are significant and beyond the prior experience of almost all of us. We may not have been exposed to the same levels of disruption as many in other places around the world, but that does not mean there are none. An article on 10 October in the Sunday Mail reported:

psychiatric consultations have increased by 5,000 in March to June and wait times for services have ballooned;

there was a 20 per cent increase in mental health presentations to the RAH over the last four months;

antidepressant prescriptions have already increased since March compared to 2019;

ambulance call-outs for mental health in September increased by 23 per cent compared to last year;

weekly calls from country South Australians to mental health emergency triage services have increased by 20 per cent compared to last year;

calls to drug and alcohol information services peaked in July, 26 per cent higher than last year;

average mental health visit times at metropolitan emergency departments rose to 12 hours in July—90 minutes longer than the same time last year; and

Lifeline call rates were up 12.5 per cent in September—one of the highest in the world.

These are just some of the indicators and should be enough to give pause to all of us here. It is important to acknowledge that governments have been responding with extra resources being made available, but, of course, this is for a system which is chronically underfunded, and, in any event, this is not just about funding. Like so many other matters this pandemic has touched, it is clear that we need to be open-minded enough to find new and better approaches to deliver outcomes.

What can we do to ensure that all our citizens can continue to enjoy the pleasures of social interaction at a time of social distancing? What can we do to keep people connected to each other and the community in which they live? What can we do to ensure that vulnerable individuals are really heard and seen before a tragic event unfolds? How can we help build good mental health habits that improve resilience for all at-risk groups? What do we need to do differently in delivering acute services? How can we intervene earlier to prevent escalation of mental health problems?

This inquiry, if the house is open-minded to support it, is an opportunity to explore and, I hope, find answers to these and other questions. I commend this motion to the house and I would hope that we can get the support to have this select committee established to understand how we can move forward. Again, I commend the motion to the house.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (11:12): I commend the member for Frome for bringing this motion to the house to set up this very important select committee. We know that there are many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and one of the particular areas of impact that will be a very long lasting impact is going to be on people's mental health and wellbeing, not just from the issues around the pandemic itself but also from the economic shocks from the pandemic.

Already we are seeing in our state a significant increase in demand on mental health services. We are seeing that at our hospitals where there has been at least a 10 per cent jump in terms of mental health admissions on last year. We are seeing that in our mental health services, like Headspace, which I visited recently, and I was informed that there was a 15 to 20 per cent jump in demand on their services. We are seeing that from our GPs and primary healthcare practitioners who are seeing significant demands additionally in terms of mental health services.

We have also seen it from researchers, such as those at the SAHMRI Wellbeing and Resilience Centre, who have been monitoring and tracking people's wellbeing, and who have seen that there are increased issues and increased anxiety, and we need to make sure that we address this. This is an appropriate thing that this parliament should be doing.

This is our job. It is our job as a house to look into these key issues and to come up with recommendations and proposals so that we can work on a bipartisan basis to address these very confounding issues and to take action to help the people of South Australia.

We currently do not have any house select committees in operation at the moment. There are no other select committees on the books, so we have the capacity in this parliament to work together on this matter. We have had very successful select committees in the past, over previous decades, where members of this house have worked together on a bipartisan basis to interrogate the evidence, find out what is going on in the community and bring back here solutions that the government can then implement.

That has delivered many good results for our state. One example I was a member of was the e-cigarettes select committee with the member for Hurtle Vale and the members for Black and Hartley as well. We came up with bipartisan recommendations, and they are now the law of the land in this state. I hope that we can do the same thing through the committee that has been proposed by the member for Frome.

This should be a time when we all work together to achieve a good outcome for the people of South Australia. There is no excuse for the government to refuse this. I think if the government were to refuse this, if they were to get up and move an adjournment of this, they would effectively kill it because it would move way to the back of the list and we would never see it again.

As the Hon. David Ridgway talked about in the other place yesterday, it would be moved to the Bermuda Triangle of the list of the parliamentary business of private members in this house. That is what a member of the Liberal Party said yesterday in the other place about the operations of this house. Let's not have this deferred and sent to David Ridgway's Bermuda Triangle. Let's make sure we get this committee started straightaway because there is not a moment to lose.

We know right now that there are very significant issues in the community. We know that if we delay this a week, two weeks, a month or six months, then we will not have time to address these issues before they become real problems for people in our community, real problems for the family members of people who are suffering, real problems for our doctors, nurses, psychologists and other mental health practitioners in our community and real problems in terms of the economic output of our state and the total wellbeing of our state.

I hate to think it, but there are potential real problems in terms of future deaths by suicide that could happen in this state. Already, we know that in 2009 the number went up in South Australia, and we do not want to see that exacerbated by the pandemic. We want to make sure that there are as many measures as possible to address that. There has been an announcement made in recent days in the budget for some mental health packages; however, this is per capita the smallest of any mainland state.

All other mainland states on a per capita basis are going ahead of us in terms of what they are delivering. They all had their packages in place well before this government announced something this week. We have the slowest and smallest mental health response thus far, and we should not be satisfied with that. I think we should work together on a bipartisan basis to address this, working across the aisle, as the people of South Australia would expect us to do.

When it comes to these big challenges, we should work together as a parliament to investigate them. We have the staff, we have the members of parliament and we have no other select committees on the books. There is no excuse whatsoever for not passing this motion today and getting cracking on the important work of investigating this issue and coming up with solutions to help the people of South Australia, who desperately want action on this issue.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (11:18): I rise briefly, too, to commend this motion. I support the member for Frome's motion that the house establish a select committee to inquire into and report upon the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of South Australians. I agree with the member for Kaurna that select committees are a really good vehicle and a good use of the resources and time of the parliament and the members of parliament as well.

I will go back to 2010, I think it was, when there was a push from the then opposition, the Liberal Party, to have a select committee on the grain handling situation after a fairly disastrous harvest. Interestingly, within the Labor caucus, the former member for Napier was the agriculture minister and he railed against it, saying, 'No, we don't want to have a select committee.' I took a different point of view, and so did the member for Light, who obviously represents grain handling interests as well. The member for Chaffey was also on that.

I have to say that was a really good experience, where we went to all parts of South Australia. A few of us even got a trip to Western Australia and a few of us went to Canada. We had the member for Hammond, the member for Chaffey, the member for Light and myself, and it was very capably chaired by the member for Frome.

So to anyone on the government benches, we should not fear what these select committees can do. They are really important in the way they can get in and find some solutions and some evidence about how we can deal with these sorts of issues as a state and as a parliament. I congratulate and thank the member for Frome for bringing this motion to the house, and genuinely hope it gets bipartisan support.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (11:20): I will add just a few comments to support the motion and support the member for Frome in his bid to establish a select committee. I agree that this issue is one that is worthy of investigation; it has certainly been raised in my current electorate of Light and by people I have had discussions with in the Barossa Valley. In particular, the issue of mental health has been raised by young people in my community.

For my youth advisory panel, which I established some 12 months ago, the number one issue for young people in my community was mental health—and this was before the COVID pandemic actually hit us. Subsequent discussions with the youth advisory panel in my community revealed there was a whole range of new issues that the pandemic caused. For example, young people were uncertain about their future, about their university studies, etc., due to the fact that their year 12 schooling was interrupted by COVID-19. They were uncertain about what impact that would have on their year 12 results and their potential to go to university or on to other further education. That weighed heavily on those students.

There were also a lot of students doing vocational education and training programs who were, unfortunately, not able to do their placements during the COVID-19 period. They were not able to go to onsite work, etc., and, again, those students were stressed out because their education and training were being interrupted by COVID-19 in the sense that they were not getting their practical experience.

A third group we talked about was those students who were forced to go online and do their studies online. If I were a student I would say, 'Online study is not for me. I really do benefit from face-to-face and classroom contact.' Some students are really great at online study, but a lot of students struggle when they have to do all their study online, both in a school environment and in TAFE and other institutions.

In fact, one of the students in my electorate, a university student, asked if we could establish a local education hub in Gawler where students could go to study locally. It was about achieving peer support, because they were struggling studying by themselves in their own home. These are some of the mental health issues that have been raised by young people in my electorate.

Another issue they raised was where a family member had lost their income, and the impact that was having on the family itself as well as the person who had lost their income. The family obviously had diminished income but a range of financial commitments to meet, and that was causing a lot of stress and pressure on them. Young people often carry that burden, and it also impacts on them in terms of their education and study.

There are people in my electorate, as well as in the Barossa area, whose businesses have declined dramatically. Some of these people have invested their whole life savings in their businesses, and to see that go really badly is not only a short-term issue but also a long-term one. It puts them under financial pressure. They have often given up a job, perhaps a full-time job, to go into business for themselves, and that was having an impact on them as well as their family. So there is a whole range of issues that needs to be addressed.

I agree with the member for Frome, certainly from discussions I have had with people in my own electorate and also in terms of the Barossa, that these mental health services are not being adequately resourced. When you hear people say, for example, that they are struggling and cannot see a medical professional for three, four, five or six months, that is just too late. They need care now.

There is a GP in my town who now specialises in mental health. I heard her on the radio the other day saying that she can take no new patients until 2022. So if you are in need of GP care in the mental health area you have to wait until 2022, which is not good. People from Headspace came to see me and spoke of the gaps and lack of resourcing for them, and the impact that is having on young people, and the need to be able to provide a new service in Gawler.

There is a whole range of gaps. When you talk to organisations such as Mates in Construction you find that, for whatever reason, the construction industry has one of the highest suicide rates for occupations in this country. I do not fully understand that, but it is a fact, and men predominantly work in those industries.

There is a whole range of issues we need to address and fully understand. Importantly, the evidence we take will hopefully develop into appropriate strategies, policy responses and appropriate funding. With those few comments, I fully support this motion because it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we understand this issue as members of parliament and that we influence government policy, irrespective of what flavour we are. It does not matter which level they are at—

The Hon. G.G. Brock: It shouldn't make a difference.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: —that's correct—it shouldn't make a difference and it won't make a difference. We need to make sure that through this committee we bring this issue to the fore and get it investigated.

Debate adjourned on motion of Dr Harvey.