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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-10-20 Daily Xml
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MENTAL HEALTH

Ms FOX (Bright) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse. What recent—

An honourable member interjecting:

Ms FOX: Sorry?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms FOX: What recent developments have there been with respect to mental health reform in South Australia, and could the minister explain the philosophy behind these reforms?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:40): Thank you—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I thank the member for Bright for this very important question. As last week was Mental Health Week, I think it is important that I update the house on where we are with the development of our mental health strategy. As members would know, the government asked the Social Inclusion Board to look at our mental health system and to report. They, in fact, reported in 2007 in a very important mental health report entitled Stepping Up.

The Stepping Up report outlined the stepped system of care which allowed patients to step out or step down from acute care or to acute care as they were becoming unwell or to intermediate services as they got better, whereas most mental health care in the past was centred around providing just acute care. We had an unbalanced system.

We as a government are investing $300 million to build the infrastructure necessary to make that new stepped up system work. The new Glenside Hospital will be the major centre—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Bragg, you are warned.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: That's true. As the police minister says—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Bragg, you are warned for the second time.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —the member for Bragg described the building of a new, modern mental health facility for South Australian mental health consumers as a disgrace. That is what she said. She cannot resile from that, Madam Speaker, that is what she said.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: It is good to see the member for Davenport defending her, though. That's always a good look. The new Glenside Hospital will be the major centre for acute mental health services for all South Australians. A 15-bed intermediate care facility and 20 supported accommodation places have already opened at Glenside. I opened them over the last few months, and they are superb, contemporary facilities, which are providing services already to mental health consumers in South Australia.

Despite this terrific progress, some members opposite persist in unnecessarily alarming vulnerable people within our community by perpetuating the myth that the government is closing the Glenside Hospital. That is what they say. It is not true. Let me assure the house it is not—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: It's interesting; you interject when I am talking, but when I stop to listen to you, you stop. It is curious, Madam Speaker, curious. On an ABC Radio news bulletin—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: There she goes. She does not want you to actually hear what she says, because she knows what she says—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister will get back to the question.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: ABC Radio morning news bulletin on 19 September ran the following story. I quote directly from the ABC news. This is just a month or so ago:

Opposition health spokeswoman, Vickie Chapman, says the government has abandoned mental health and spent millions on a film facility.

Well, apart from the factual problem with the story, it was interesting that the member for Bragg was speaking outside of her portfolio responsibilities. Previously, the member—

The Hon. K.O. Foley: That's never stopped her before.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: That's never stopped her before. It was a rare straying from the proven track. Previously, the member for Bragg had said on 14 September on the ABC, and I quote:

Our concern over the last four years is the government's decision to sell off half of Glenside leave the mental health patients in a very difficult position. Since then, whilst the government have announced that they are going to build a hospital for mental health patients, that's still dirt and nothing done.

The facts are that construction of the main hospital site is well under way. Obviously, when you—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Minister.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: This is the level of dishonesty that we are having to deal with in this area, continual dishonesty about our mental health system perpetuated by those on the other side. That is—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Bragg, do you want to go out again today? Minister.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Thank you, Madam Speaker. The facts are that the new Glenside Hospital is under construction and I was out there with the media just last week. The premise underpinning the Stepping Up report—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: The construction on the new hospital is underway. We have opened up two elements of the new facility, as I have said, and the premise of the Stepping Up report is that mental health care should be integrated in everyday mainstream activities in order to encourage destigmatisation.

That is one of the central themes that was in the Stepping Up report, and that is why the design plan for the Glenside campus, a design plan that those opposite have continually opposed, is about embodying integration as it provides for the new mental health facilities not to be isolated from the community, not to be in a location which is seen with a stigma—a place people recoil from—but as part of a community where things happen. So, there is residential, retail, commercial—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley, you are warned for the second time!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —as well, of course, as a working film hub. This will be a vibrant location where mental health consumers will not feel the stigma of being isolated in a location which people know as a place where mental health patients go. This will be a place where people shop, where people live and where people make art. This is a great advance for mental health in our community. It is a tragedy that those on the opposite side do not get that. Nonetheless, they are entitled to their views, no matter how wrong they happen to be.

The step below acute care in the stepped program is intermediate care. Last week, I had the pleasure of opening the $4 million 15-bed Western Intermediate Care Centre with my colleague, the member for Cheltenham. This is the third of four of such centres which will provide a step down from acute services for those who are getting better but who still need some care and assistance to prepare for independent living. Such centres are already operational now at Glenside and also Noarlunga and one is planned, of course, for the northern suburbs. We are also offering intermediate care in the country for the very first time.

The step below intermediate care is the community rehabilitation centres, of which there are three 20-bed centres already operating at Elizabeth, at Mile End and at Noarlunga. The next step down is the supported accommodation, of which there are 20 units at Glenside already operational. There are people living in these units at Glenside who have never had a street address. There is a person living in one of those units who has been there in Glenside, in institutionalised care, for decades. They now have their own unit with their own bathroom, their own bedroom, their own kitchen, their own laundry and their own street address.

It is absolutely something that we should be very proud of. They have opposed it every single step of their way. It is about dignity and it is about providing a life for people, not locking them up and forgetting about them. That is what we used to do. We are not going to do that anymore. The next step down, as I was saying, is those 20 beds at Glenside, with a further 35 already built and tenanted across various locations in the metropolitan area. The remaining 22 will be completed next year.

It must give Premier Rann and, indeed, Monsignor Cappo and my predecessors as mental health ministers, great pleasure to see how these facilities are now operating given that, before 2007, the idea of these facilities did not exist. Now, the facilities themselves are there. South Australia, I am proud to say—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —is now leading the nation in mental health reform, and this has been recognised by the Mental Health Coalition of South Australia, who have informed me that they will be writing to the Premier to thank him for his commitment to mental health. They understand the enormous improvements that this government has made to mental health services and they also recognise that these changes—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: They also recognise that these changes would not have occurred without the personal commitment and leadership of the Premier. I personally would like to thank him for his outstanding leadership in this area. The Premier's and South Australia's leadership have also been recognised on the national stage. The COAG communiqué, at its meeting on 19 August this year, acknowledged the 'significant contribution' of the Premier in the area of mental health reform.

The communiqué also 'acknowledged the leadership of Premier Rann in driving improvements to Australia's mental health system'. This is real improvement as a result of a person who cared about doing something for the most vulnerable group in our community. This is an exciting time in mental health care in this state, and I would like to thank the dedicated mental health staff whose hard work has enabled this transformation to occur in our service.

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