Your views: on mental health services and more
Today, readers comment on the mental health crisis hitting public hospitals, and closed borders.
Photo: AAP/David Mariuz
Commenting on the story: ‘Inhumane’: ED wait time blowout for mental health patients
Was it not the Labor government that showed such shocking foresight in implementing the closure and sale of the vital Glenside mental health facility in their failed “Stepping Up” policy for the future of mental health in SA?
This disastrous policy was massively criticised and extensively opposed by involved doctors and nurses from the outset, but any arguments against this move fell on deaf ears.
We are now reaping the results of very poor forward planning, with many people who should rightly be under supervision being out and about and having to try to take care of themselves with little or no supervision. – Henry Krichauff
Because of Labor’s “Transforming Health” shambles, South Australia is left without a mental hospital facility, so what has happened is that any person who would normally be admitted to a mental hospital, if we had one, has to now be admitted to the general hospital system.
The “new” RAH is incapable of accommodating any persons who require mental health treatment and the medical staff are not qualified to treat mental health patients. Sadly, mental health patients are now not being treated with the care and attention they sorely need. So much for transforming health. We have already seen many of these unfortunates being sent to live in the suburbs, such as Semaphore, where they all receive the “excellent care and attention” that they need. – Bronte Allan
Commenting on the story: What we know today, Friday October 15
I live in London and would very much like to visit Adelaide to see family and friends who I have been away from for almost two years.
I hope what Steven means in his response is that once South Australia hits a 80% double vaccination rate, vaccinated overseas arrivals into Adelaide will not have to face any sort of quarantine. Dominic Perrottet should be commended for his policy change. New South Wales is sensibly coming into line with international practice, and it would be disappointing if South Australia did not.
The country needs consistent, simple, fair and proportionate rules across its jurisdictions. I wish the state (and Steven) all the best as the next steps are approached but I do hope the goal of living with Covid and returning to normality is prized over timidity and fear. – Michael Gabrielson