NEWS RELEASE
October 28 2002
Improvement needed
for rural Australia’s mental health system
GPs,
community nurses, police, teachers and clergy are providing the frontline
for rural and remote Australia’s mental health system according to the
Director of Public Health at UniSA’s South Australian Centre for Rural
& Remote Health, Dr Jeff Fuller. And, Dr Fuller says, while there have
been improvements, such as tele-psychiatry, the system is still inadequate
to meet the increasing demands for mental health services over the next
decade.
Dr Fuller flags that by
2010, depression is expected to be a major cause of global illness with an
estimated one in five Australian adults affected by a mental disorder.
"While
studies are inconclusive as to whether the mental health of rural
Australians is better, worse or the same as metropolitan Australians, what
it is clear is rural and remote Australia is worse off when it comes
mental health services," Dr Fuller says.
The
Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing revealed that
more than a third of remote Australians who had some need for mental
health care felt that these needs were not met compared to only a quarter
of metropolitan Australia.
"We
need to find innovative ways to ensure that people with mental disorders
do receive timely assistance," Dr Fuller says.
"Right
now, getting access to timely treatment is a problem for a number of
reasons.
"A
lack of specialist services in rural and remote Australia is of key
concern. Recruiting and retaining mental health nurses and social workers
to the community mental health teams continues to be a problem.
"Further,
people living in rural and remote communities are more reluctant to
acknowledge mental illness as a problem and to use mental health services.
"In
small rural and remote communities, front line people such as GPs,
community nurses, police, teachers and clergy often provide some form of
first level mental health help, even if in an informal way. They are able
to do this because they are available, part of the community and there is
no stigma in being seen to be talking to them."
However,
Dr Fuller says if these front line people are to provide quality mental
health help, then they need support as a part of the network of mental
health workers.
"I
would like to see the creation of local mental health service networks for
collaborative working and skills development. A network could comprise the
visiting mental health worker, local GP, community nurse, police officer,
minister and so on. Such a network would be a different way for these
local workers to operate, and this would require new skills and support
from the visiting mental health specialists."
This
is one of the recommendations contained in mental health plan developed in
partnership with the Northern & Far Western Regional Health Service
that has recently been signed off by fifteen human service agencies in the
region, including GPs, the mental health teams, police, ambulance,
Aboriginal health services, drug and alcohol services and others. The plan
will be presented at the Outback SA Health Promotion Conference to be held
in Whyalla on the 14th and
15th November.
Contact:
Dr Jeff Fuller, Director of Public Health, South Australian Centre for
Rural & Remote Health, UniSA Ph 0419 821 830 or
Media contact: Thel Krollig, Media Liaison,
UniSA, (08) 8302 0028 or 0407 726 175
