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Six new mental health hubs to be rolled out in priority areas
By David Estcourt
Six new mental health sites will be rolled out across suburban Melbourne and regional Victoria in “priority” communities that require urgent mental healthcare services.
Mental Health Minister James Merlino said communities in Benalla, Brimbank, Frankston, Greater Geelong, Latrobe Valley and Whittlesea had been identified because of the prevalence of psychological distress and per capita levels of suicide attempts.
Mental Health Minister James Merlino.Credit: Nine
The announcement on Wednesday follows the release of the 3195-page final report from the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, which recommended the creation of dozens of adult, youth and child mental health services in a variety of locations, reducing the need for people to travel a long way from home.
“We are not wasting a day. These sites will support people from their first to their last contact with mental health services,” Mr Merlino said.
“What they’ll provide is expanded treatments, therapies and wellbeing supports.”
“This is where we’ve got the most need … These six priority areas, local areas, identify themselves.”
Mr Merlino said the exact services provided were still being developed. The six hubs would be open by the end of 2022.
The remaining 60 sites are due to be completed by 2026.
Premier Daniel Andrews said that fulfilling all the recommendations of the royal commission, which the government preemptively agreed to in 2018, would take years but the project would overhaul the entire mental healthcare system in Victoria.
“We will tick off each and every one of the recommendations, the 65 of them,” Mr Andrews said.
“This investment is critical ... we need to make sure that we are doing everything we possibly can to give to our dedicated staff the facilities, the budgets, the support that they need to, in turn, change lives and save lives.”
All the locations identified by the government had higher self-harm, suicide attempts or ongoing mental health issues than the Victorian average.
The rural town of Benalla, in Victoria’s north-east, had the highest per capita level of suicide over the 2011-2020 period, as well as one of the highest per capita levels of suicide attempts presenting to emergency departments.
Frankston, in Melbourne’s south-east, had one of the highest per-capita rates of suicide attempts presenting at emergency departments in 2020-21 and one of the highest per-capita rates of suicide over the 2011-2020 period.
Whittlesea, in Melbourne’s north, was still struggling with ongoing mental health issues related to the Black Saturday bushfires, the government said.
About one in five Victorians will experience a mental health problem this year, while suicide is consistently the leading cause of death for people aged between 15 and 44.
The government said the services would be underpinned by the “how can we help?” model, aimed at integrating health services to make a patient’s navigation through the system straightforward and easy.
Mr Andrews said the report’s recommendations would “serve as our blueprint for the biggest social reform in a generation”.
Royal commission chair Penny Armytage said the existing system had “catastrophically failed to live up to expectations”. The final report found the system was overwhelmed and could not keep up with the number of people who sought treatment.
There was an over-reliance on medication, the perspectives of people with mental illness were overlooked, families and carers were left out, stigma and discrimination were ever present and services were difficult for many people to afford.
Five key recommendations
The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System published its 3195-page final report on Tuesday. Premier Daniel Andrews has committed to implementing all 65 recommendations made in the report, which include:
- Establish dozens of local adult, youth and child mental health services in a variety of locations, reducing the need for people to travel a long way from home.
- Create new crisis facilities and “safe spaces” for adults and young people, designed with the help of people with personal experience of psychological distress.
- Create a new non-government agency led by people with personal experience of mental illness and psychological distress.
- Throw out the old Mental Health Act and enact a new one preferably by the end of the year, with a primary objective to achieve the highest attainable standard of mental health and wellbeing for all Victorians.
- Immediately reduce the use of seclusion and restraint in mental health, with the aim of eliminating the practices within 10 years. Immediately ensure compulsory treatment is only used as a last resort.
Last November the Victorian government pledged $870 million – including 120 mental health beds in Geelong, Epping, Sunshine and Melbourne – acknowledging the “broken” mental health system had been strained even further under the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It also said the government would invest $2.2 million to begin designing the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health – a key recommendation of the royal commission’s interim report.
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