State budget 2021 has $160m for mental health in SA, including 16-bed centre in Adelaide’s north
More than $160m – including a $20m crisis centre in Adelaide’s north – will go to mental health in SA, which is struggling under the weight of Covid.
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More mental health beds in hospitals and crisis centres, support for children and people struggling with addiction, and training to grow the workforce are part of a $160m package to improve mental health treatment in South Australia.
Key pledges include building a $20m, 16-bed crisis stabilisation centre in the northern suburbs to provide an alternative to hospital emergency department admission and a $48m, 20-bed older person’s acute mental health unit at Modbury Hospital.
Another $12m will provide up to eight extra psychiatric intensive care beds to be used “as necessary, based on future demand” in the public hospital system.
There is also funding to extend the operating hours of the Adelaide Urgent Mental Health Care Centre, which opened in March. It is currently federally-funded and open 12 hours a day. The state government has committed $4.5m a year to enable it to operate 24 hours a day.
This change is among initiatives The Advertiser and Sunday Mail have lobbied for through the Let’s Talk campaign to bolster the state’s mental health sector.
The campaign also called for more treatment beds and staff across the system, supported accommodation for patients discharged from hospital, and funding for services provided in the community, including for children.
The budget allocates funding in a number of these areas, including:
$5mNEXT financial year for housing – to be built and operated by non-government organisations – to enable people with mental health disability to live independently and remain connected to support services.
$8.4m A YEAR to expand services for children and adolescents, criminal offenders with mental health issues and adults with diagnoses including post-traumatic stress disorder and drug or alcohol addiction.
$7.3m TO CONTINUE programs put in place to respond to the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including phone counselling, for another 12 months.
$5m OVER two years to grow and upskill the state’s mental health workforce.
Treasurer Rob Lucas said there was “a crying need and staff vacancies in this area and we need to match the skill set with the supply of trained staff”.
“We have nurses, for example, who are looking for employment who require skill upgrades or training to be able to work in the mental health area,” he said.
The budget decisions follow months of warnings by bodies including the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, the SA Salaried Medical Officers Association, and the Ambulance Employees Association that the state’s mental health system was at breaking point.
The Mental Health Coalition of SA had also urged more community-based options for people to avoid hospital emergency departments.
Mr Lucas said the extra funding had been allocated in consultation with SA’s Chief Psychiatrist Dr John Brayley.
Health and Wellbeing Minister Stephen Wade said the total $163.5m commitment signalled an intention to “refocus health services on mental health”.
“We know that mental health reform is challenging, complex and takes time to do well but we are making the immediate and long-term investment required,” he said.
Many of the measures should also ease pressure on the wider hospital system, Mr Wade argued, by diverting mental health patients away from ambulances or EDs.
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