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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-20 Daily Xml
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MENTAL HEALTH BEDS

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:35): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse a question about forensic mental health beds.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: In October 2006, the government announced the new prisons project. The proposal included an 87 per cent increase in the capacity of the men's prison. There was no change announced in the capacity of the forensic mental health service. As a result, the number of forensic mental health beds will go from one bed per 10 prisoners to one bed per 19 prisoners. In July 2007 the government announced a new forensic mental health facility. The 40-bed facility will replace the current 40 beds. There was no change in the number of beds in the forensic mental health service.

In October this year the government announced that it would increase the scope for expansion of the new men's prison, with new cells, which would take capacity up to 940, and provision for doubling up, which would allow for a capacity of up to 1,128. There was no change in the number of forensic mental health beds, not even the capacity to expand this number of beds. The number of forensic mental health beds per prisoner could go from one bed per 10 prisoners to one bed per 23 prisoners; the ratio could go as high as one bed per 28 prisoners. On Thursday last week the minister's response to the Public Advocate's concern about the lack of capacity in the forensic mental health service was to accuse the Public Advocate of being ungrateful that the government is upgrading the beds. My questions to the minister are:

1. Is not the quality of the beds of little use to prisoners if we are already short of beds, and the government wants to make beds up to three times as hard to gain access to?

2. Why did the government announce a new forensic mental health facility, without increasing the capacity, in line with the previous decision of the government to expand the prison capacity?

3. Why did the government not take the opportunity to provide capacity for expansion of the forensic mental health facility when it provided for expansion of the capacity of the prison in October?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health) (14:37): I thank the honourable member for his important questions. Indeed, this government is extremely proud of its reform agenda for the whole of our mental health system throughout South Australia, from the acute forensic services right down to support packages from our NGO sector. We have a complete reform agenda to rebuild and restructure our mental health system and services throughout the state. It is the first such significant reform of the state's mental health services, I believe you could pretty well say, on record, Mr President, and it is something about which this government is extremely proud.

Not only do we have a plan and a vision for the reform of our mental health system: we also have committed resources to do that. We have already committed $107.9 million to rebuild and restructure our mental health system. Those people sitting opposite me should hang their heads in absolute shame in terms of the state of absolute neglect in which they left our mental health system and services. One of the planks—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: And so they should squirm. Thank you, Mr President, for your protection. One plank of our reform agenda is the rebuilding of our forensic mental health facility. Given the rebuilding of our prison system, there was an opportunity to be part of a PPP arrangement to join in with that project. There was a window of opportunity for us to rebuild a state-of-the-art forensic mental health service. As I have said before in this chamber, in terms of its model of care, it will be managed quite separately to the present system. The design will be contemporary in terms of forensic mental health facilities.

It will be of international standard. The current facilities in this state are somewhat outmoded as they were built around a custodial prison-type model of care. The new facility will be built on a recovery style, state-of-the-art model of care. The proposed $39.8 million, 40-bed forensic mental health facility will be managed and operated as a mental health facility providing recovery-oriented mental health care. It will consolidate all of our forensic services in one place and will be built and operated according to the forensic services standards of the National Mental Health Strategy, as well as supporting South Australia's Strategic Plan.

Currently, there are 30 forensic mental health beds at James Nash House, and we are building 40 beds in the proposed new development; 10 of those beds are currently at the Glenside site for people who have committed crimes but who are not guilty because of mental illness—these beds will be moved. We will also have 40 new beds at Glenside for people who need secure care, and that needs to be drawn to people's attention. The new redevelopment for the Glenside site proposes a new hospital to be built and, as part of that facility, there will be an additional 40 new beds to provide secure care.

In terms of meeting our state's needs, we will continue to monitor that in accordance with the demand on services. The new forensic mental health facility will be built in a way that will be quite easy to expand and develop according to future needs. We are very proud to be providing a world-class model of recovery for forensic mental health clients.

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