No extra money to expand the nation’s first mental health care centre in CBD

The nation’s first mental health care centre in Adelaide won’t get extra federal funds to open 24/7, as experts and advocates now look to next month’s state budget for additional dollars.

South Australian mental health advocates have given a mixed report card on federal budget measures to help the system.

They have welcomed the federal government’s extra spending as “significant”, “long overdue” and needing rapid implementation, but say much more is needed to address a surge of patients continuing to bottleneck in metro Adelaide emergency departments.

On the wishlist for Tuesday night’s federal budget was more funding to expand the nation’s first Urgent Mental Health Care Centre. Its doors opened in Grenfell Street in March as an alternative to EDs and operates 12 hours a day.

“While there is nothing in the federal budget to increase the UMHCC to 24/7, we eagerly await the state budget and a co-funded state and federal expanded service for South Australians,” said Neami National state manager Kim Holmes.

Urgent Mental Health Care Centre on Grenfell Street, Adelaide – the first in the Nation and a blueprint for another seven more. UMHCC State Manager SA (Neami National) Kim Holmes Picture: Keryn Stevens

About $12m in federal funds will go to the centre in the next three years. The Advertiser last month reported a second UMHCC has been mooted for the northern suburbs.

SA Health Minister Stephen Wade said consumer feedback from the Adelaide UMHCC was positive and that opportunities to grow the service would be explored.

He said the increased federal funding in mental health was a good first step for long term reform.

Lived Experience Australia founder Janne McMahon, from Adelaide, said the mental health centres were a compassionate and quality alternative to EDs and more were needed. She said the 57 additional multidisciplinary mental health treatment centres across the nation, would help address access problems repeatedly raised by people with lived experience, their families and carers.

The Urgent Mental Health Care Centre on Grenfell Street, Adelaide – the first in the Nation and a blueprint for another seven more. Main Lounge. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists SA Branch chairman Dr Paul Furst said more community based mental health care would help address some of the unmet need. But he said the federally-funded initiatives would not compensate for the “dangerously low number of psychiatric beds … which ultimately leads to long-stay patients in acute hospital beds, bed block in EDs and ambulance ramping”.

Australian Medical Association state Vice President and psychiatrist Dr Michelle Atchison said

increased funding, especially that targeted good quality follow up would help those affected by suicide and suicidal distress. “We still need funding for services to stop people getting to this terrible point,” she said.

Dr Michelle Atchison – Psychiatrist and vice president of the AMA SA branch says private sector mental health services are struggling with extra demand post- COVID. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton said the state government, “now awash with extra GST funding” had no excuse not to fund urgent action over mental health and ramping crisis in SA hospitals.

Australian Nursing Midwifery Foundation SA Branch CEO Elizabeth Dabars said urgently needed was additional acute mental health beds. “Otherwise South Australians will continue to endure inhumane wait times in inappropriate care settings,” she said

Lived Experience Leadership and Advocacy Network executive director Ellie Hodges said: “While there are positives in the budget, relying on collaborations with state and territory governments means that what much of what this will look like in practice will take time to reveal itself.”

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Originally published as No extra money to expand the nation’s first mental health care centre in CBD