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Mental health discrimination costs us all
Date published: Thursday, 29 April 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's newly announced mental health funding would be more effective and cost-saving if there was investment in anti-stigma initiatives. Discrimination against people with mental illness not only generates social exclusion, it creates a drain on the economy. Governments in Britain, the US, Canada and New Zealand have all invested in anti-stigma mental health campaigns to reduce the costs to society of mental illness.
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Respite services lacking funds: Auditor-general
Date published: Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Source: ABC News
ACT Auditor-General Tu Pham says respite care services in the Territory are suffering from a lack of funding. Several mental health groups say there are not enough respite services out of hours and on weekends and people in the criminal justice system still lack support. Ms Pham released a report last year that found funding applications in 2008 amounted to more than $11 million but only $2.8 million was granted.
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Deadly cost of mental health funding shortfall
Date published: Monday, 26 April 2010
Source: The Australian
Jeff Galvin knows all too well what it's like to see people fall through the cracks in Australia's mental health system. The 52-year-old diagnosed schizophrenic works as a client liaison officer for a Melbourne community-based mental health service. Over the years, he says, he has seen "hundreds" of friends and clients fail to receive the preventive care and hospital services they need. Many of them fell victim to the worst of outcomes. Mr Galvin said he had attended a funeral on Friday for a friend who suffered bipolar disorder -- an illness that results in extreme mood swings -- and who had lost his battle with the condition.
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Kennett gives thumbs down to health plan
Date published: Thursday, 22 April 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Former Victoria premier Jeff Kennett, now a mental health advocate, has given the thumbs down to the federal government's health reforms.
Mr Kennett, now a director of the national depression initiative Beyondblue, suggested Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had suffered a rush of blood to the head as the man who wanted to achieve health reform.
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Australia Focuses On Improving Care For Mental Health With $174 Million Investment
Date published Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Source: Government of Australia
Australians with mental health needs, especially young people, will receive improved care through a $174 million investment in mental health services. As part of the establishment of the National Health and Hospitals Network, the Government intends to take a greater policy and funding role for mental health services over time, providing a foundation for better coordinated care for people with mental health disorders into the future.
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Katherine keen to make a difference
Date published: Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Source: Milton Ulladulla Times
Katherine Firth is loving her new job as team leader at Sunflower House in Ulladulla. "In a way I get paid for having fun," she said last week. Mrs Firth has extensive experience working with people with a disability and hopes her new role will help make a real difference in the local community. Sunflower House is funded by the Schizophrenia Fellowship of New South Wales and delivers a Day to Day Living (D2DL) program for people with a mental illness.
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Youth the focus of mental health funding
Date published: Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Young people will get the most benefit from the federal government taking charge of mental health under a new agreement with the states and territories. Under the reforms, agreed to by all states except Western Australia at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on Tuesday, mental health will get a $174 million boost. The commonwealth, in taking funding and policy responsibility for primary care services currently funded by state governments, also assumes responsibility for mental health care for common disorders like anxiety and depression.
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Coalition considers health reform plan
Date published: Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
The federal coalition will examine the detail of the prime minister's health and hospital plan before deciding whether to support it. But opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said it was already clear that Kevin Rudd had been unable to deliver a national agreement, with Western Australia failing to sign up.
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Mental health on the COAG table: Roxon
Date published: Monday, 19 April 2010
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
The federal government is expected to provide more details of its plan to overhaul mental health care at Monday's leaders' meeting in Canberra. Labor has been criticised for neglecting mental health over the last month as it's announced key elements of a proposed shake-up of the nation's health and hospital services. But the issue will be the focus of detailed discussions at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting.
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Greens call for $5b mental health plan
Date published: Sunday, 18 April 2010
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
The Australian Greens are calling on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to adopt their proposed $5 billion mental health plan into his hospitals reform package. Greens senator Rachel Siewert on Saturday said current mental health care arrangements weren't working, and the issue had been omitted from the federal government's health package before the states and territories.
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Rudd has the mandate but not the perfect plan
Date published: Sunday, 18 April 2010
Source: The Age
Substantial and sustained health reform is needed, not a state versus federal duel. The great health debate of 2010 is a dud. We should be talking about the shape of our future health system and what we're prepared to pay for it. Instead, the battle between Kevin Rudd and John Brumby over who funds hospitals - an important but relatively small part of the picture - has left us feeling like tennis spectators watching a tedious baseline rally.
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No health without healthy beginnings
Date published: Saturday, 17 April 2010
Source: The Australian
My father died in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital, in circumstances that were probably worse than would have been expected in the jails of the day. I'm inherently suspicious of systems of coercive institutional so-called care - but their need has not disappeared. In the 40 years since, the "bins" have gone and much has happened to improve the ways in which institutional systems of care meet the needs of Australians experiencing mental illness. That said, there is still a long way to go and, predictably, those for whom that journey will be longest are those most disadvantaged in our society.
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Time for Canberra to get serious on mental health
Date published: Saturday, 17 April 2010
Source: The Australian
Community demands force the issue on to the agenda. Closing mental institutions and bringing people back into the community was meant to fix mental illness. It didn't. More than two decades on, the nation battles with a health issue estimated to afflict as many as four million Australians in any one year. But one positive from the community approach to mental health is that it is now so public, its sufferers so visible, its impact on families and friends so intense that it cannot be ignored. No longer out of sight, mental health demands political attention, public resources, expert treatment and adequate research.
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Graying in a Home, Not an Institution
Date published: Friday, 16 April 2010
Source: New York Times
Svetlana Gomelsky, 61, who has schizophrenia, is the beneficiary of one of the quietest, least-heralded social revolutions of her generation. Starting at about 18, she began hearing voices. “The first time, I thought it was an accident,” she said. “They went away.” She married, had two children, lived in the Long Island suburb of Lawrence and worked as a secretary at a Hebrew school. But eventually the voices returned, growing more intrusive. “I got scared,” she said. “Not only was I hearing voices, I could talk to them. I started to feel God gave me these powers because he had a special plan for me.”
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Govt eyes primary health care takeover
Date published: Friday, 16 April 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
The federal government is prepared to take on complete funding of the nation's primary care services in a move that health professionals say could transform the mental health system. Speaking on ABC's Lateline on Thursday, Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the federal government was prepared to take on 100 per cent of primary care services as part of the health reform package to be discussed at Monday's Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting.
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Millions for Mental Health
Date published: Friday, 16 April 2010
Source: Star News Group
Work on the largest Victorian mental health development in 50 years kicked off at the Dandenong Hospital yesterday. The $69 million redevelopment of the hospital’s mental health facility will feature more inpatient beds and site-wide infrastructure upgrades. The project will create about 290 new jobs during construction.
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PM accused of neglecting mental health
Date published: Thursday, 15 April 2010
Source: The Australian
Mental health campaigners, including Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry, have failed to convince Kevin Rudd that he should be tackling inadequacies in the system as part of his broader health reform push. Professor McGorry -- who provocatively described immigration detention centres as "factories for producing mental illness" -- features prominently in advertisements for the GetUp action group calling for mental health to be made a government priority.
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Mental health drama Next To Normal wins Pulitzer Prize
Date published: Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Source: BBC News
A Broadway musical chronicling a woman's struggle with mental illness has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Next To Normal was praised for "expanding the scope of subject matter for musicals".
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McGorry criticises Rudd health plan
Date published: Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry has criticised the federal government's hospital plan, saying the key area of mental health has been ignored. The mental health expert says it should be "front and centre" of the reform agenda, which includes a greater share of commonwealth control of hospital funding.
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Illawarra gets mental health funding
Date published: Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Source: ABC News
Illawarra will take a share in more than $4 million in Commonwealth funding for expanded mental illness community programs. The Personal Helpers and Mentors program will be extended across the country, including three locations in the Illawarra.
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Rethinking mental disorders
Date published: Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Source: Independent
Is promiscuity an illness? What about childhood tantrums? As psychiatrists set out to redraw definitions of mental disorder, controversy is inevitable. Where exactly does the difference lie between extreme human behaviour and a psychiatric illness? The question is being asked because as a US encyclopaedia of psychiatry is rewritten for the first time in more than a decade, controversy is already raging about what goes into it, and what gets thrown out.
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States offered $650m for elective surgery as sweetener for health reform
Date published: Monday, 12 April 2010
Source: abc.net.au
The Prime Minister says the states and territories will have his final proposal on health funding by tonight, and it will include one last sweetener. Mr Rudd is due to meet the premiers and chief ministers at a special Council of Australian Government meeting next week. In one final effort to win an agreement the Federal Government is offering $650 million over four years to fund more elective surgery. But like the emergency department funding announced over the weekend, and today's boost for aged care, the money will only be provided if the states and territories sign on to Kevin Rudd's health plan.
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Mental health funding for Riverina
Date published: Monday, 12 April 2010
Source: ABC News
The Federal Government says Riverina people with a mental illness will have access to more support as a result of ongoing Commonwealth funding. Lambing Flat Enterprises based at Young and the Schizophrenia Fellowship in Wagga Wagga will each receive $1.4 million funding for the next three years to continue its work in community mental health services.
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$80 million to help Australians with a mental illness
Date published: Thursday, 8 April 2010
Source: www.adncentral.org
Australians with a severe mental illness will continue to have access to intensive, one-on-one support through an $80.3 million over three years funding extension to the Personal Helpers and Mentors (PHaMs) program. Through this funding, 33 providers offering services at 58 locations across Australia will be able to continue to employ 290 full-time equivalent personal helpers and mentors to work individually with people with mental illnesses. Since 2007 PHaMs services have helped around 9,000 people with a mental illness.
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Mental illness program funding extended
Date published: Thursday, 8 April 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
The federal government will extend funding to a program that provides helpers to work with the mentally ill. More than $80 million will be spent during the next three years to fund 290 personal helpers and mentors around the country.
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Dairy debate
Date published: Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Source: The 7:30 Report - ABC
For generations, cows' milk has been championed as a healthy, nutritious part of the daily diet, but there are claims it could also be a trigger of for a long list of diseases like juvenile diabetes, heart disease, schizophrenia and even autism. It's a debate that started in New Zealand more than a decade ago after some scientists claimed regular milk could be harmful.
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Gene mutation may be key to schizophrenia: study
Date published: Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Source: Reuters
A genetic mutation linked to schizophrenia appears to rupture communication between the two areas of the brain believed to be responsible for memory and may be an underlying cause of the brain disorder, U.S. researchers suggested.
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McGorry appeals for mental health reform
Date published: Sunday, 28 March 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry will appeal for mental health to be part of the federal government's health reforms in national television commercials to be aired this weekend. Professor McGorry, a mental health worker for 27 years, makes the plea in a campaign for political activists GetUp. In the commercial, which will debut during political programs on Sky News and Channel 10, he says that any serious health reform must include mental health.
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Kids prescribed toxic drug cocktail of anti-depressants
Date published: Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Source: The Daily Telegraph
Children as young as one are being prescribed powerful anti-psychotic drugs that have been linked to deaths overseas. The strong medication is designed to quell psychotic episodes normally experienced by adults with schizophrenia and bi-polar. There are concerns some doctors are illegitimately writing scripts for pre-schoolers and primary school children for unapproved medical reasons, such as behavioural problems or ADHD.
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Mental health act ensures families no longer in dark
Date published: Monday, 22 March 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Matthew Murphy's mind snapped 11 months too early. Had the 41-year-old been able to endure the crippling depression that enveloped him for a while longer, the state's new Mental Health Act would have required hospital staff to tell his family what was happening with his care. It may have saved his life.
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Govt not ignoring mental health: Roxon
Date published: Thursday, 18 March 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
The federal government denies it has ignored mental health care in its health reform plans, saying it is focused on laying the foundations first before turning to specific areas. The comments come after two psychiatry leaders, Patrick McGorry and Ian Hickie, criticised the government's refusal to declare it would take over the struggling mental health system in its health reform blue print.
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Renewed push to list Melancholia as a mental illness
Date published: Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Source: abc.net.au
For 2,000 years it's been recognised as a mental condition, although it's been out of fashion for decades now. But it could be about to make a comeback. A Sydney psychiatrist is leading a global push to have melancholia listed as a mental illness. Professor Gordon Parker from the Black Dog Institute says patients suffering the symptoms of melancholia should be given special status instead of being diagnosed with depression.
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Dr Mark: The real risks of mental illness
Date published: Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Source: The Times Online
Reports that the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, may appeal against his conviction on the ground of diminished responsibility because he had paranoid schizophrenia when he murdered his victims can only reinforce public perception that the mentally ill pose a serious threat and further stigmatise an already poorly understood condition.
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$1m boost for schizophrenia research
Date Published: Monday, 8 March 2010
Source: Southern Courier
Cyndi Shannon Weickert’s research into finding a cure for schizophrenia has been given a $1 million boost from the NSW Government. Professor Shannon Weickert, a Maroubra resident, has personal ties in wanting to help people suffering from schizophrenia as her late twin brother suffered from the disease and from the side effects of the treatments he was taking. “I’m not going to give up on this: the funding has just given us more opportunities to win the rat race of getting closer to the cure,” Prof ShannonWeickert, who holds the Macquarie Group Foundation Chair of Schizophrenia Research at the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, said.
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Mental health program cut adrift
Date Published: Thursday, 4 March 2010
Source: The Northern Rivers Echo
When Brad heard the support group he attends in Lismore for people with mental health and substance abuse issues would be closed down, he had a panic attack. This week Brad and other participants of the MISA (Mental Illness and Substance Abuse) Lifestyle Support Program were told that after June funding for the program runs out and it will cease operating. Last year the program was a finalist in the National Drug and Alcohol Awards for excellence in treatment and support. This year it is about to close.
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Mental health funding boost for refugees
Date Published: Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Source: Big Pond News
The federal government will provide more than $5 million in funding for mental health services to treat traumatised refugees. But it has refused to say whether cases of mandatory detention in Australia contributed to the issue. Community services minister Jenny Macklin on Wednesday announced $5.4 million in new funding for the personal helpers and mentors (PHaMs) program, which will target new refugees.
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Mobile mental health
Date Published: Monday, 1 March 2010
Source: Herald Sun
Mobile phones will be used as a weapon in the fight against teenage depression. A new program will use the integral role the phones play in the lives of Australian teenagers - from organising their lives via SMS to connecting on Facebook and snapping digital photos on the run - to boost mental health. Dr Sophie Reid, of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute's Centre for Adolescent Health has pioneered a way to get teens to express their feelings using mobiles.
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Marijuana smoking teens prone to schizophrenia
Date Published: Monday, 1 March 2010
Source: The Times of the India
Teens who smoke marijuana are at a greater risk of developing schizophrenia and psychotic symptoms in the future, a new study has found. After observing more than 3800 youngsters, researchers learnt that people who used the drug for six or more years were twice as likely to suffer from delusional disorders than those who never used it.
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