The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists () say that Labor’s pledge, that includes 300 urgently needed public hospital beds – 98 of which are specialised mental health beds – would help relieve the crippling pressure on emergency departments and exhausted healthcare workers. It would also bring SA much closer to the national average of hospital beds per capita and help deliver South Australians the healthcare system they urgently need.
SA’s mental health crisis is directly linked to and . Many ED beds are consistently occupied by patients experiencing mental health issues who need long-term mental health care but – due to a huge shortage in mental health beds in SA – have nowhere else to go.
More inpatient beds mean that people experiencing mental health issues requiring long-term care would have somewhere to go, freeing up emergency department beds, reducing hospital overcrowding, and releasing ambulances to leave the ramp.
In SA, approximately 1 in 25 people who seek care in ED do so because of acute mental health issues, yet they comprise a third of patients who wait longer than eight hours for an inpatient bed.
ACEM South Australian Faculty Chair Dr Michael Edmonds said, “We welcome SA Labor’s pledge of 300 hospital beds, including 98 mental health beds. ACEM have for investments in the healthcare system, including desperately needed inpatient beds, for years and are relieved that this pledge puts health on the agenda for this election.”
“All other parties contesting the SA election should now pledge towards improving the mental wellbeing of South Australians by committing to increasing the number of inpatient beds and setting meaningful performance indicators to reduce excessive stays in the ED for patients in mental distress.”
“We can’t wait any longer. It is not acceptable that extensive ED overcrowding is seen as normal, nor is it acceptable that people requiring acute mental health care are regularly held for long periods in our EDs. EDs, with their bright lights and constant noise, are not the right environment for people experiencing distress to be stuck waiting.”
“Staff are burnt out and leaving the sector in droves. This broken system is preventing us from providing the necessary levels of care our patients in distress desperately need.”
Chair of the RANZCP SA Branch Dr Paul Furst said the requests for investment and reform are merely to bring SA up to the national average. “SA has fallen below a functional minimum. In an ideal world we would like a world class system for SA but we are starting from a low base. We’re not going to see that kind of change overnight. We’re not immediately asking for the kind of transformative investment in mental health we are seeing other states implement. All we are asking is that all South Australian policymakers commit to getting us in line with the national average.”
“We’re an entire Modbury Hospital of mental health beds short of simply being average, and that gap is only going to get wider without investment. The people of SA expect, deserve and pay for certain minimum requirements of a functional mental health system.”
“We support investment across the entire mental health system, including community based services, prevention and diversion measures. But our inpatient system is the most desperately in need right now. This is not just about more psychiatrists or emergency medicine specialists. We need more nurses, psychologists, allied health professionals and peer workers.”
“We must have a system that supports people with mental illness receiving care in the right place at the right time, and that requires an increase in beds and services. We just want a mental health system that works for the people under our care.”
