Zali Steggall launches major policy to tackle suicide crisis
ZALI Steggall has launched a wide-ranging mental health policy in a bid to tackle the country’s suicide crisis. With the countdown on to the Federal Election the challenger for Warringah has detailed her first major policy.
Manly
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ZALI Steggall has launched a wide-ranging mental health policy in a bid to tackle the country’s suicide crisis.
With the countdown on to the Federal Election the challenger for Warringah has detailed her first major policy.
In it she calls for radical action to tackle the escalating suicide rate which is at a 10-year high.
“Despite mental health being the primary reason Australians visit their GPs, it is given far less funding and attention than physical health,” she said. “As a parent of teenagers I’m acutely aware of how big an issue this is.”
She is calling for Medicare payments for extended GP mental health consultations and bulk billing for mental health video consultations.
She also wants greater support for mental health education and self-awareness programs in schools and workplaces.
For complex mental health cases she wants team-based care that include GPs, social workers and community services, such as drug and alcohol counselling and housing assistance.
The policy announcement comes just days after the State Election result which Ms Steggall was “encouraging”. She said the swing away from local Liberals was a result of dissatisfaction with Tony Abbott.
She said the basis of the policy was to create a system that treated mental and physical health equally based with services focused on prevention.
“The more I’ve looked into it, the more I’ve appreciated how much our health system separates out physical and mental health,” she said. “I actually think we need to look at the whole thing holistically.”
She said much of the problem is a lack of funding, experts and also inefficiencies.
“There’s not enough resources,” she said. “I mean, there are not enough psychologists and psychiatrists available. The waiting list I’m told is up to three months.
“If you have an at-risk young person who is distressed and urgently needing help it is no good being told there is a waiting list.
“If it was physical, if you turned up to hospital with a broken leg you’d clearly get treated within a reasonable period of time.
“The difficulty of mental health is it’s not always clearly visible. And so it doesn’t get treated the same way as physical issues. That needs to change.”
Ms Steggall said she had stayed true to her promise of not rushing into making promises and announcing policies off the cuff.
She said she has consulted widely on the mental health plan including representatives from Lifeline, Heart on My Sleeve and Gus Worland, founder of Gotcha 4 Life.
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