Griffith Base Hospital: MP, action groups call for mental health services in redevelopment
Young suicidal people are being “locked in cells and treated like criminals” at a hospital looking after up to 80,000 people, as the Riverina suffers a “mental health crisis”.
The Wagga News
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Riverina communities are outraged by a lack of plans for mental health facilities at Griffith Base Hospital — forcing suicidal youth to be “locked in cells” while awaiting transfer to a crippled Wagga Wagga mental health unit.
Save Griffith Base Hospital president Jenna Woodland said she has sat with young, suicidal people at Griffith Base Hospital for hours in small windowless rooms while medical staff complained beds were “being wasted” while they waited for phone calls with mental health professionals two hours away.
Ms Woodland said services in Murrumbidgee Local Health District — which has the largest suicide rate in the state — fail to cater for the 80,000 people it cares for.
“When people present to Griffith Hospital as suicidal, they are held in a cell with no support,” she said. “They are treated like criminals and told they are wasting services for hours on end, which drives them to leave the care of the hospital.
“People feel they have no one to turn to in our community, if you are raped in Griffith you are left in emergency or a maternity ward, there are no counsellors on-site.
Murray state Shooters MP, Helen Dalton said hospitals in her electorate were “completely ill-equipped to serve the community” and called on Health Infrastructure to include plans for a mental health unit at Griffith.
“After much community outrage and services being cut, we have been successful in our demands for a new $289 million hospital,” Ms Dalton told The Wagga News.
Ms Dalton said the community was “suffering from a mental health crisis” following a spate of five deaths during the Summer holidays and a further four attempts.
“We are crying out for mental health facilities in our hospital but there is not new facilities or resources being added,” she said. “We have children as young as six or seven committing suicide and we are not addressing these issues.
“This hospital keeps being downgrading and people are sent to Wagga which is crippled and totally overloaded.”
A Murrumbidgee Local Health District spokeswoman argued most people “do not require hospitalisation for their mental health conditions”.
“Supportive care to assist people to live well in the community is the best way to care for most people who experience mental health conditions,” she said.
“Griffith Community Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol Services provide clinical services to all ages.
“This includes people at risk of suicide, people with complex and severe mental health conditions, people recently discharged from an acute mental health unit, children with
behavioural issues, peri-natal and infant mental health.”
Murrumbidgee Local Health District should have 36 acute state-funded mental health beds according to the National Mental Health Services Planning Framework, but Wagga-based mental health inpatient services include a 30-bed unit.
A further 20-bed recovery unit and a 16-bed older persons mental health unit is also provided.
A Health Infrastructure spokeswoman said the wider Griffith community, including Ms Dalton, representatives of Griffith Council, Rotary and the multicultural council have been involved in the redevelopment of the hospital since the development of the clinical services plan.
“The Griffith Base Hospital redevelopment is progressing in two streams, the continuation of
enabling works and the progression of the design for the new clinical services building,” she said.