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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-05 Daily Xml
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Question Time

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES, WOMEN

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:20): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question about mental health services for women.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Yesterday the minister highlighted what she considers to be discrimination against women in the Australian honours system. I raise an issue about women at the other end of the social scale, women with mental health issues. Women with mental health issues may not only have to deal with discrimination based on gender but also may be socially isolated through stigmatisation related to their mental health status. The government is planning for inpatient services for women with forensic mental health issues to be available only from a facility collocated with the new prison at Mobilong. They face the prospect of a triple burden of discrimination and stigmatisation.

In opposing the establishment of the Select Committee on Proposed Sale and Redevelopment of the Glenside Hospital Site, the Minister for the Status of Women expressed concern at the risk of stigmatisation through the committee. On the other hand, before the committee the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists highlighted the problem of stigmatisation of mental health patients caused by the government's proposed collocation of the facility with a prison environment. The college's submission to the committee stated:

It is difficult to reconcile this decision with a primary purpose of reducing stigma flouted in the remainder of the Glenside development. Forensic patients are as much in need of mental health care as any other stream of patient. To remove these patients to the non-central location some 50 minutes out of Adelaide, to adjoin a prison complex, can only serve to increase stigma and decrease positive outcomes for this population group.

In light of the comments of the college and the report of the committee, will the minister defer to the royal college and accept that the risk to women with mental health problems is greater from the proposed relocation of the facility than from the establishment of the committee, and will she make representations to the Minister for Health that the facility not be transferred?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister Assisting the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Energy) (14:23): I thank the honourable member for his questions. A great deal of thought and planning has been considered in relation to the future service planning for mental health patients. I am no longer the minister responsible for mental health services, but certainly during my time, in terms of the development of the Glenside concept and master plans, I know that a number of opportunities were to be afforded consideration in the planning and modelling of the facility that included a wide range of issues, including indigenous clients, for example, as well as gender issues. The gender lens, if you like, to the best of my knowledge as the former minister, was being put to that planning.

In terms of the new forensic facilities being proposed, again this is the responsibility of the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse and is no longer my responsibility. Nevertheless, I know from my time as minister responsible, in that early planning time, as I have said several times before, that the plans for forensic mental health care were a contemporary model of recovery care for mental health clients. Some of the best evidence-based and most contemporary analysis was put into those considerations. As I have said in this place before, it was to be planned on a recovery model of care rather than a custodial model of care. I have previously put on the record in this place that the facility is not a corrections model of care, so I think the Hon. Mr Wade has become confused about the different types of services being provided. I know that clinical experts were given the opportunity to have input into the clinical models for that facility. As I have said, these are all matters that I considered in my former role. I cannot comment on more recent considerations, but I know that those matters received significant consideration in all of the previous planning.

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