Mental Health in the Media
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SA Health defends mental health deaths
Date Published: Thursday, 25 February 2010
Source: ABC News
SA Health has defended a departmental report which says 40 people died after discharge from South Australia's mental health system last year. Most took their own lives, prompting calls for greater support services for the mentally-ill when they return to the wider community.
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Mental health service faces funding fight
Date Published: Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Source: ABC News
A service that helps north coast people with mental illness and substance abuse problems will close at the end of June unless government funding is renewed.
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McGorry urges mental health overhaul
Date Published: Monday, 22 February 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
The Australian of the Year, Patrick McGorry, has called for a massive overhaul of the mental health system to direct funds away from acute hospital services to more community-based care.
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Australian PM pledges $9 million for homeless
Date Published: Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Source: Business Week
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pledged 10 million Australian dollars ($9 million) Wednesday to assist homeless people suffering from severe mental illness. The move was part of the Labor government's plan to halve the nation's homeless rate by 2020 -- a goal set when it took power in 2007, when more than 100,000 people were homeless.
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More mentors to help homeless
Date Published: Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Source: The Canberra Times
The Federal Government will spend $10 million to have 36 more personal mentors helping homeless people with a mental illness by mid year. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made the announcement of extra funding for the personal helpers and mentors program this morning in an apparent bid to get Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to support the Government's target of halving homelessness by 2020.
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Health research gets boost
Date Published: Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Source: sciencealert.com.au
A new database to be launched today will provide schizophrenia researchers across Australia with access to new information to help them treat the condition. The database, developed by eResearch company Intersect, will be used by the Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank (the Bank) and accessed by researchers around the country.
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Database to boost schizophrenia research
Date Published: Monday, 15 February 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Schizophrenia research in Australia has been revolutionised, scientists say, as a new database is launched. The secure internet-based resource provides researchers with a quick way to store and also search through the files - such as brain scans - provided by 4,000 volunteers who have the condition.
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New mental health rehab for combat veterans
Date Published: Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Source: ABC News
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is setting up a new rehabilitation program which it hopes will stop soldiers suffering from mental health problems from leaving the service. Announcing the program today at Senate Estimates, Chief of the Defence Force Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston says the ADF wants to ensure soldiers who are unwell are treated quickly.
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Mental health needs early care: health system
Date Published: Saturday, 6 February 2010
Source: The Australian
Every 15 minutes someone somewhere in Australia attempts suicide. Every four hours someone dies as a result. Suicide is the leading cause of death in people under 30, causing more deaths than road accidents, though efforts to reduce this carnage are puny in comparison with attempts to reduce the road toll. Are the lives of those who commit suicide so much less valuable?
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WA Government announces mental health commission
Date Published: Thursday, 4 February 2010
Source: abc.net.au
In a national first, the West Australian Government has announced the setting up of a Mental Health Commission next month. The commissioner will report to the state's Mental Health Minister, Australia's only political representative with that sole responsibility.
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Fish oil hope for schizophrenia patients
Date Published: Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Source: ABC News
A new study suggests that fish oil could be the key to a safe and effective form of treatment for young people with schizophrenia. For young people at risk of developing the mental illness, early treatment is generally seen as the best way to avoid full-blown psychosis down the track.
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Drug and alcohol unit expanded
Date Published: Sunday, 31 January 2010
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
The NSW Government has acknowledged the roles mental illness and domestic violence play in parental drug and alcohol abuse by expanding the Community Services Drug and Alcohol Specialist Unit.
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Mental health bill hits $1.5b
Date Published: Saturday, 30 January 2010
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
Measures to contain the runaway cost of Medicare-funded psychological treatment have failed, costs spiralling 26 per cent last year, according to new analysis. Spending will blow out to $1.5 billion by next year, twice its budget allocation. But despite the huge investment the Federal Government has not released any evidence that mental health is improving.
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Inject sense into psychiatric care
Date Published: Saturday, 30 January 2010
Source: The Australian
The decision to name Pat McGorry Australian of the Year is timely. He's a pioneer in early intervention for young people with psychiatric disorders, a clinical innovator and a researcher of international renown. He's also a tireless advocate for desperately needed mental health services for all Australians: services that should be accessible, effective, welcoming and more community-based. Hopefully, in his new role McGorry, a keen surfer, will help us catch the anticipated wave of national health reform to develop urgently needed and better funded and organised services.
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A man on a timely health mission
Date Published: Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
Professor Patrick McGorry is an inspired choice for Australian of the Year, even if he is not - as has been routinely pointed out this week - a household name. The lack of name recognition is of little relevance when set against the importance and relevance of Professor McGorry's mission: improving the mental health of young people. In other words, this world-renowned expert from Melbourne University brings a message likely to resonate in a great many Australian households.
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Mental health advocate fine award choice
Date Published: Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Source: Illawarra Mercury
Many of us are only learning about the man who is the 2010 Australian of the Year, Professor Patrick McGorry, but his lack of fame should not negate either the value of the accolade or the importance of his contribution to the country.
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'Mental illness factory' remarks not attack on Labor: McGorry
Date Published: Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Source: ABC News
New Australian of the Year Professor Pat McGorry has moved to clarify comments he made about the detention of asylum seekers, saying he did not mean to be overly critical of current government policy.
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Aussie of Year Patrick McGorry blasts asylum policy
Date Published: Monday, 25 January 2010
Source: Courier Mail
THE new Australian of the Year has waded into controversy, describing detention centres for asylum seekers as "factories for producing mental illness".
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Desperate carers failed by system in crisis
Date Published: Sunday, 24 January 2010
Source: The Age
Hundreds of disabled and mentally ill Victorians are languishing on supported-accommodation waiting lists as their desperate carers find themselves unable to gain access to respite facilities due to huge funding shortfalls, a parliamentary inquiry has found.
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Eye test could help diagnose depression
Date Published: Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Source: ABC News
Australian researchers hope a curious visual phenomenon will improve our understanding of manic depression and may one day lead to a diagnostic test.
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The Americanization of Mental Illness
Date Published: Sunday, 10 January 2010
Source: The New York Times
Americans, particularly if they are of a certain leftward-leaning, college-educated type, worry about our country’s blunders into other cultures. In some circles, it is easy to make friends with a rousing rant about the McDonald’s near Tiananmen Square, the Nike factory in Malaysia or the latest blowback from our political or military interventions abroad. For all our self-recrimination, however, we may have yet to face one of the most remarkable effects of American-led globalization. We have for many years been busily engaged in a grand project of Americanizing the world’s understanding of mental health and illness. We may indeed be far along in homogenizing the way the world goes mad.
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Mental illness blocks the road back home
Date Published: Saturday, 9 January 2010
Source: The Australian
The Rudd government will fail to meet its goal of halving homelessness by 2020 unless it delevops and drives a robust national framework targeting the ageing and mental health needs of people who will never be able to live fully independent lives, experts claim.
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Homeless need mental health support
Date Published: Monday, 4 January 2010
Source: The Australian
The Rudd government will fail to meet its target of slashing homelessness by half over the next decade because it is failing to acknowledge the role of mental health issues in fuelling the problem.
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