Tia Sweeney shares how Covid is impacting young people’s mental health

The number of suicidal, self-harming teens presenting to emergency departments has increased by almost half since the pandemic, prompting calls for more mental health funding.

When Tia Sweeney told emergency department nurses she wanted to kill herself, they sent the teenager home with a sedative.

Three weeks later when the 18-year-old woman was admitted to Sutherland Hospital emergency department threatening suicide, she was again sent home and told she would be better off in the community.

Ms Sweeney’s situation is becoming increasingly common among young people, who are bearing the brunt of the Covid-19 induced psychological and economic hardship.

The number of 12-17 year olds presenting to the ED with self-harm or suicidal ideation has increased 47 per cent in the year to July 2021 compared to 2019.

The increase was only 17 per cent across all age groups, according to NSW Health.

ED departments in the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network (Randwick and Westmead), St Vincent’s and Northern Sydney have been the city’s most impacted.

In the year to July 2021 those hospitals have seen increases of between 42 per cent and 211 per cent (St Vincent’s) in 12-17 year olds presenting to ED with self-harm or suicidal ideation.

Ms Sweeney suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, depression and PTSD.

Tia Sweeney, 18, was recently turned away twice from ED’s after suffering a mental health emergency. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

While she has suffered from mental ill-health since age 10, she said the past 18 months have been by far the hardest.

“I believe it was brought on by the Covid lockdown and that I had been cooped up for so long,” she said of the past two episodes, for which she is receiving treatment from a private physician.

“And I would say the majority of the problems I had during my HSC were because of the lockdown last year.

“I actually kind of stopped going to school after the 2020 lockdown.

“These are meant to be like the best years of your life — finishing high school and your first year at uni. But I’m in lockdown.”

Professor Ian Hickie said isolation from the lockdown is adversely affecting young people.

University of Sydney Brain and Mind Centre policy co-director Professor Ian Hickie said young people’s social and economic wellbeing is the most likely to be adversely affected by isolation.

He also said many parents in affluent northern and eastern Sydney areas “don’t take ‘no’ for an answer” and are presenting to ED’s because they are unable to get services elsewhere.

“They want access to an effective service and they will keep coming back in an attempt to protect the life of their child and to seek services,” Prof Hickie said.

“And they expect the public sector system to respond appropriately.”

Prof Hickie called for the same urgency around mental health services that we now have around the deployment of the vaccine.

“The logistics of putting services on the ground requires serious co-ordination now, and that will require redeployment of workforces, not just commitments of money,” Prof Hickie said.

A Sutherland Mental Health Service spokeswoman said their services include but are not limited to Acute Community Mental Health care by an Acute Community Team providing intensive treatment for a person in their own home.

“A suicide prevention outreach team (SPOT) works closely with the Acute Care Team for

consumers that require extra support for suicide risk,” she said.

“In addition, the Sutherland Hospital Mental Health Service also include adult and youth community mental health treatment teams, a child and adolescent mental health team and an Older Persons’ mental health team.

“The Sutherland Hospital Mental Health Service has a 28 bed Acute Mental Health Unit for

consumers requiring intensive inpatient mental health care.”