Failure of GPs to screen for bipolar is 'deadly'
Date published: 11 December 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
People are dying because doctors are not screening them for bipolar disorder and diagnosing them with depression instead, one of Sydney's leading mental health experts says.
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Battle to keep darkness at bay when mental illness hits home
Date published: 8 November 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
In our loneliest, lowest periods we all need someone who can see what we can't, someone we can reach out to, someone who will listen and do their best to understand.
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It's time to confront the deadliest demon of them all
Date published: 3 November 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
There is a silent killer in our schools, stalking the youth of Australia. It is silent because we don't talk about it. It is not cancer or obesity. It is suicide, and as many as five Australian children attempt it every day.
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Call for action as indigenous suicide reaches crisis level
Date published: 23 October 2010
Source: The Australian
Indigenous communities are experiencing a suicide crisis, with the rate of deaths and attempts increasing, a Senate hearing has been told.
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Erratic sleep points to mental illness
Date published: 22 October 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
The way teenagers sleep can provide a clue to their longer-term risk of developing depression or bipolar disorder.
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Teens overestimate mental health stigma
Date published: 12 October 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Teenagers overestimate the stigma mental illness carries and the attitudes of others to depression, a university study has found.
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Young carers need care too
Date published: 11 October 2010
Source: The Daily Advertiser, Wagga Wagga
October is mental health month across Australia and Bev Denley, community development officer for mental health at Sunflower House, is spreading the word to break down the stigma relating to mental illness.
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Consensus close but funding gets in the way
Date published: 8 October 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
It came close to a political embrace on mental health funding. But the would-be partners shrank back at the prospect of a serious proposal to do something.
At a forum on mental health yesterday, the government and Coalition frontbenchers, Mark Butler and Peter Dutton, spoke supportively of each other’s plans for a big boost to community-based mental health services.
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Mental health in our jails: inmates, bureaucrats question treatment
Date published: 7 October 2010
Source: crikey.com.au
Nearly half of all inmates in New South Wales have a mental illness, but there is a desperate shortage of beds in prison mental health units and decisions about their care are left in the hands of prison guards with little or no training in mental health.
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Mental health at risk of funding loss
Date published: 23 September 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Mental health, drug and alcohol services across NSW risk losing hard-won funding if they are split into smaller geographic areas under the federal government's health reform plan, specialists say.
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Greens, Coalition to join forces in push for mental health services
Date published: 23 September 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Demand from the Coalition and the Greens for a big boost to mental health is shaping as an early challenge for the minority Labor government.
Both non-government parties at the election pledged to expand mental health services significantly — in contrast to Labor's modest policy — and are now signalling they plan to press the issue early in the term of the new Parliament, which sits for the first time next week.
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Mental health seen as key to better Indigenous outcomes
Date published: 21 September 2010
Source: ABC
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda says improving standards of mental health will be crucial in closing the gap in Indigenous life expectancy.
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Schizophrenia: Personal confrontations and a philosophical investigation
Date broadcast: 18 September 2010
Source: ABC Radio National
Philosopher, poet and writer Dr Paul Fearne had his first psychotic episode as a young university student, and continues to take medication. 'To live is to take a leap into a sea of daggers, each one stabbing the fabric of your being,' he wrote in his diary at the time, now published. From Freud to Wittgenstein, his experience inspired a unique PhD investigation into the philosophical questions posed by schizophrenia.
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Mental health care needs a new approach
Date published: 10 September 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Mental health issues account for more than 60 per cent of the total burden of ill-health in young Australians today.
Australia desperately needs a modern, unified mental health system that is governed independently of, but with strong links to, the acute health and primary care streams.
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PM urged to act on mental health reforms
Date published: 10 September 2010
Source: The Australian
Australian of the Year Pat McGorry has called on Julia Gillard to establish a prime ministerial taskforce on mental health within a month to prove she is keeping her promise to make the sector a priority in Labor's second term.
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Depression may have traditional cure
Date published: 4 September 2010
Source: The Australian
Depression has become a huge public health challenge and improved treatments are vital given the numbers of those affected, the impact on those around them, and, for many, the persistence of the condition.
One innovative depression treatment is being investigated by University of Technology Sydney PhD student Kirk Wilson.
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Helping people at risk of suicide
Date published: 26 August 2010
Source: ABC
When somebody close to you is struggling with suicidal thoughts it can be hard to know how to respond, but experts say family and friends have a crucial role to play.
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New helping hand for those with disabilities
Date published: 5 July 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
When Clare Hooper left high school, she attended a special community centre to learn life skills and go on group excursions. As a person with intellectual disabilities and schizophrenia, she was given little choice. The government-funded centre offered her two days of activities with 30 others. And as her mother, Helen, remembers, Ms Hooper was ''bored and unfulfilled''.
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Mental health in jail 'tragic'
Date published: 5 July 2010
Source: The Australian
A NSW magistrate has called for increased powers to place mentally ill offenders in medical institutions for up to two years. Currently, the longest in-patient order in NSW is for three months, which experts believe is usually insufficient to achieve compliance with a regime of medication and prevent future mental and criminal relapses. Jim Coombs, who has presided as a magistrate in NSW for about eight years, said it was "simply tragic" that so many people with mental health issues were being incarcerated each year.
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Support is more than a marginal issue
Date published: 3 July 2010
Source: The Australian
For nearly 10 years, Elaine Goddard has struggled to get the right help for her severely mentally ill son. He receives just 10 minutes a fortnight in support from his local health service. The 55-year-old Ms Goddard is the primary carer for her 24-year-old son, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2003 but has had mental health troubles since the age of 14. Ms Goddard voted for Labor in 2007 but said she was now considering switching to the Coalition in the next federal election.
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Mental health should not be afterthought
Date published: 1 July 2010
Source: The Australian
Tony Abbott's promise of a $1.5 billion investment in mental health services under a Coalition government is an all-too-rare alignment of good policy and good politics. In contrast to the federal government, which promised more than it delivered, the opposition's blueprint sets out a responsible path forward in a chronically neglected field. Twenty-seven years after the Richmond Report in NSW advocated a new approach to caring for Australians with mental illnesses in the community, rather than in institutions, many of the benefits of that vision have proven elusive. It was motivated by the very best of intentions but the closing of institutions was not backed by investment in the specialist hospital, community and accommodation services that are essential for supporting people with a mental illness.
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Abbott takes action as new PM settles in
Date published: 1 July 2010
Source: The Australian
Tony Abbott has acted swiftly in response to Julia Gillard's elevation by starting to produce substantive policy and move into a positive phase. After weeks of leaving Labor to turn upon itself over leadership, concerns about asylum-seekers and the proposed $12 billion resource super-profits tax, the Opposition Leader has launched a direct attack on the government's weakest spot - services for mental health. Since Kevin Rudd unveiled the government's health reforms there have been persistent questions about a lack of resources being directed towards mental health and growing public concern. The resignation of one of the government's chief advisers on mental health and criticism from respected leaders in the field have exposed Labor to political attack and Abbott has acted.
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Help youth with mental health issues take control of their future
Date published: 1 July 2010
Source: The Australian
Adam Ellison has seen the debate surrounding youth mental health rage throughout his four-year battle with depression. He knows that the key to young people getting better is specialised services. After attempting suicide three years ago, Mr Ellison was discharged from hospital and sent to group therapy sessions surrounded by people twice his age. It was not until months later when he started treatment at new youth mental health service Headspace that the 26 year-old could get a grip on his illness. "Youth mental health has only really been a focus for governments for the last three years and the support recently has been amazing," Mr Elliot said.
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Rethink urged on mental health
Date published: 1 July 2010
Source: The Australian
Health experts have asked the government to revise its national registration and accreditation scheme on psychology. They fear the proposed exclusion of one of its key areas will affect the mental health of chronically ill patients. The scheme, which introduces new national arrangements for all health professions from today, will provide the first ever national regulation for the psychology sector. Seven of the nine psychological specialisations have been endorsed under the new scheme, but with health psychology and community psychology left out.
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Experts hail a policy 'game-changer'
Date published: 1 July 2010
Source: The Australian
Of all the expert voices raised in support of the Coalition's mental health policy yesterday, the one that will ring clearest is that of Pat McGorry. Professor McGorry - an advocate of early intervention for youth mental health problems - has fought tirelessly to use his Australian of the Year title as leverage to win more resources for the cash-starved sector. With yesterday's "very welcome" $1.5 billion announcement from the Coalition, he hopes he may be halfway there. "I'm optimistic that the Gillard government will now turn their attention to (mental health)," Professor McGorry said.
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Tony Abbott's mental health strike
Date published: 1 July 2010
Source: The Australian
Tony Abbott has ignited the unofficial election campaign by targeting Labor's policy weak point of mental health with a $1.5bn spending package. The package includes 800 new hospital beds. Capitalising on health sector anger about Rudd government inaction on mental health, the Opposition Leader yesterday promised to fund 80 new mental health treatment facilities, including 60 serving young people. And as the government warned the opposition would have to cut existing services to fund the changes, Mr Abbott said he could bankroll his plan by eliminating the "suffocating bureaucracy" put in place by Labor.
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Abbott to spend $1.5b on mental health plan
Date published: 1 July 2010
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Tony Abbott has seized on a gap in the government's health reforms, vowing to spend $1.5 billion on mental health services in measures to be financed by scrubbing central elements in Labor's health scheme, including ''layers of bureaucracy''. The Coalition has taken up appeals by the Australian of the Year, Patrick McGorry, and promised to open 20 early psychosis intervention centres and 800 more mental health beds. Also promised are 60 additional ''headspace'' centres - one-stop venues for young people at risk of mental illness.
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Coalition pledge on mental health
Date published: 1 July 2010
Source: The Age
A promised $1.5 billion increase for mental health if the Coalition wins government has put the issue firmly on the election agenda and exerted pressure on the government to act, experts say. Announcing his mental health policy in Melbourne yesterday, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the promised funding over four years would deliver 60 new headspace centres to provide mental healthcare to young people. It would also provide 20 early psychosis and early intervention centres for young people, and an 800 more mental healthcare beds.
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$1.4m of funding for mentoring program
Date published: 15 April 2010
Source: The Daily Advertiser
More people living with mental health issues will have improved lives after the federal government announced $1.4 million in funding for a specialist mentor program. Wagga's Schizophrenia Fellowship has received the funds which will be used in its Personal Helper and Mentor Program (PHAMS) for people who are unable to access a range of services due to their mental health issues.
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