Immediate solutions to address gaps in mental healthcare services are urgently needed in Victoria, as the state struggles to deliver its promised system-wide reforms due to workforce and budgetary pressures.
Read: Victorians are inundating the national suicide hotline, The Age
New research from the McKell Institute show the number of Victorians reaching out to Lifeline during personal crises has risen beyond pre-pandemic figures. Contacts to Lifeline—through phone calls, text messages, and online chat—continue to climb year on year, reflecting the need for more mental health resources.
The McKell Institute has called for practical support to deliver the short-term solutions needed to make sure Victorians needing urgent help do not miss out.
Victorians are still living with the substandard mental health system that was the focus of a two-year Royal Commission that ran from 2019-2021, commissioned by the then-Andrews Government. Upon releasing an interim report in 2019, Royal Commission Chair Penny Armitage described Victoria’s mental health system as having “catastrophically failed to live up to expectations.”
The government has committed to overhauling mental healthcare and implementing all of the Royal Commission’s recommendations over 10 years, however, timelines have already slowed. A complete mental healthcare system rebuild is reliant on new internal infrastructure – the work teams, governance systems, management and oversight capacity – to be put in place, which is time-consuming and costly.
Listen: ABC Statewide Drive Victoria, Rebecca Thistleton
The Institute’s report, A Lifeline to more support: Victoria’s crisis calls highlight mental healthcare pressures makes four recommendations:
- The Victorian Government should fund Lifeline’s centres with an annual grant, to give the organisation certainty and allow for adequate planning. This would allow for needs-based service delivery and operates successfully in NSW.
- Lifeline’s regional centres should be funded based on the cost-saving measures enhanced services would deliver.
- Lifeline Australia’s services should form part of strategic efforts to help people access the services they need, instead of heading to hospital emergency rooms.
- The Victorian Government should collaborate with Lifeline to deliver short and medium-term solutions for yet to be funded recommendations from the Royal Commission.
Targeted state government funding in NSW has allowed Lifeline to draw from its deep and established network to deliver specialised support and training, filling immediate gaps and responding to needs as they emerge and serves as an example to Victoria.
This is possible because the New South Wales Government provides Lifeline with a $12 million annual grant. This has given Lifeline’s NSW centres capacity to handle more crisis contacts than any other state and offer a range of community programs and specialised training.
Services provided include gambling support groups, suicide bereavement support services, resilience workshops, family violence workshops, men’s groups, programs for people experiencing depression, face-to- face counselling and rapid response help during a crisis, such as a flood or bushfire.
Lifeline already operates across eight centres in Victoria and is a registered training organisation, and is well- placed to partner with government, particularly in the regional areas where the lack of trained mental healthcare workers is hardest felt.
The full report is available here.
“Overhauling Victoria’s mental health system was never going to be easy, but worker shortages and budget pressures mean it’s harder for the government to make system-wide changes while the existing system continues to struggle.
“Funding Lifeline to use their existing infrastructure and deep experience in crisis help and suicide prevention across Victoria makes sense.
Contact: Rebecca Thistleton, 0416510724
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