Why so many Australians can’t get mental health help

An investigation has found mental health professionals are not being deployed to areas most in need — and the city to country ratio is more lopsided than ever.

Exclusive: A surge in the number of psychologists has failed to dent the nation’s rising suicide toll.

A News Corp investigation has also found mental health professionals are not being deployed to areas most in need — and the city to country ratio is more lop sided than ever.

And it can be revealed a rapid rise in mental health prescriptions has not stopped Australians taking their own lives.

Our analysis of Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data shows although there are 5490 more psychologists now than in 2011 the number of suicides increased by 745 annually in 2019.

The analysis also found suicide rates are lowest in states where mental health prescriptions are lowest with the exception of the Northern Territory where scripts are low and the number of people taking their lives is high.

SANE Australia CEO Jack Heath said a key problem was psychologists and psychiatrists were not working in the areas of greatest need.

“If you look at psychiatrists you’ve got 16 per 100,000 in the major cities then you go out to the just the regional areas and it drops to 6.4,” he said.

The number of psychologists dropped from 105 per 100,000 people in major cities to just 61 per 100,000 in inner regional areas and to 46 per 100,000 in outer regional areas.

Likewise the Medicare dollars spent on the mental health of people living in cities was five times higher than the amount spent on people in the regions.

SANE Australia CEO Jack Heath Picture News Corp.

“So, we haven’t got the funding mix right, in terms of the support people in those rural and regional areas where the suicide rates, you know, head up towards double what they are in the major cities,” he said.

Sydney University’s Professor Ian Hickie agrees “the use of medicines in proportions to psychological therapy is high in poor areas in areas with a lack of access to psychology”.

He wants the system reformed with new more affordable models of care in the bush that pay for outcomes rather than a fee for every service.

He said telehealth models could help.

Mr Heath said a fundamental shift was needed in narrative around suicide, suggesting we should profile the stories of people who’ve tried to take their lives, but are glad they lived to tell the tale.

“There’s at least half a million Australians who are walking around today not saying life’s perfect, but who have attempted suicide at some time in their life and (in) our (SANE Australia’s) ‘better off with you’ campaign we tried to get out stories of people like that,” he said.

People who contemplate taking their own lives often feel like they are a burden on others and it was important to refer them to the stories of other people who had overcome these feelings, he said.

One in every six Aussies is taking a mental health medication and the Productivity Commission and leading psychiatrists are questioning whether we are over medicating people.

News Corp’s analysis of AIHW data shows antidepressant prescription rates are highest in inner regional areas.

Bede Carmody who is a mental health ambassador for SANE Australia. He runs an animal sanctuary outside Canberra and has suffered bouts of depression over several decades. Picture: supplied

Bede Carmody has used antidepressants in conjunction with counselling on several occasions to treat depression.

Mr Carmody, who runs an animal rescue centre outside Canberra, said he became depressed in the 1990s as a result of suppressing his sexuality and his GP who was studying psychotherapy helped him through it.

“He was really good explaining all the pitfalls of the medication and explained to me that you can’t just go on and off these things kind of gradually get to graduate into them starting on the low dose, and then when you go off them it will take a month or so depending on how strong a dose you go up to,” he said.

Dan Brown from Mitcham, Melbourne has been on antidepressants for 18 years and said they initially made him suicidal. He has spent the last two years tapering down his dose so he could get off them.

“I never had suicidal thoughts before I started the medication,” he said.

Mr Brown said he was initially prescribed the medication because he was “washed out” as a result of is high pressure job as a transport manager.

Now he no longer works under that pressure he believes there is no need for him to keep taking the medication.

His sister Kathy set up a Facebook group called Australian Antidepressant Class Action after a family member was harmed by antidepressants medication and she says tens of thousands of people have joined groups such as hers because of problems with the medications.

Originally published as Why so many Australians can’t get mental health help