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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-01 Daily Xml
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MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (14:53): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing a question regarding mental health services in South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: As members of this chamber may have seen, over the last two days there has been media coverage (both print and radio) on the lack of forensic mental health beds in this state. Tom Bowden's article in The Advertiser yesterday quotes very unhappy sources from both this state's Australian Medical Association branch (AMA) and the Law Society of South Australia on the lack of appropriate forensic mental health services for patients.

It talks about the capacity of James Nash House, the state's only specialised forensic mental health unit, not having increased in the quarter century since it opened, which still remains at 30 beds, with another 10 still being provided at Glenside. The AMA and the Law Society have both called for the doubling of high security beds to 60 beds, since at present:

Ninety per cent of prisoners requiring acute mental health care are sent to the Royal Adelaide Hospital and returned to prison without effective mental health treatment...

In addition to this being a concerning violation of prisoners' rights to access adequate health care, I am also extremely worried about the potential for other mental health clients to not receive appropriate care and for nursing and other medical staff being ill-equipped to deal with the needs of forensic mental health clients.

Constituents are reporting to me that at the Glenside campus of the Royal Adelaide Hospital there are regularly up to six forensic patients in the Cedars psychiatric intensive care unit who are mixing with other mental health patients. This could mean that a violent male offender with criminal convictions, for example, is in a ward with a mentally ill, middle-aged woman. There are also a number of forensic patients across other closed wards at Glenside and around the state. Glenside has only one seclusion room where a client can be detained alone.

James Nash is a purpose-built unit with secure cells for seclusion at night and with adequately trained nursing staff and prison guards on hand. Cedars ward and the other wards at Glenside campus are not secure facilities and simply have standard security guards when a duress alarm goes off or code black is called. These wards have breakable windows if somebody really wants to escape. They may be enclosed wards, but they are not designed for community safety and patient care when a patient is detained, not containing prisoners with a mental illness. Meanwhile, I understand that the closure of eight acute open beds at Glenside is imminent. My questions are:

1. Does the minister acknowledge the disgraceful lack of forensic mental health beds in this state?

2. Is the minister planning to fund additional forensic mental health beds to address the Law Society's and the AMA's concerns about patient care and treatment?

3. Is the minister concerned that other patients and staff are at risk in his drastically underfunded forensic mental health sector?

4. Is the minister waiting for a serious breach of patient, staff or community safety before he acts to rectify this appalling situation?

5. What happens when the seclusion room at Glenside is being used and they require a second seclusion room for another patient?

6. Was the psychiatric extended care unit (PECU) at the Royal Adelaide Hospital's North Terrace campus purely created in an attempt to improve waiting time and bed statistics at the hospital?

7. Why is the minister closing eight open acute beds at Glenside when clearly the mental health system is in crisis?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:57): I thank the honourable member for her very important questions. I undertake to take those many questions to the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse in other place and seek a response on her behalf.

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