Today’s reports of vulnerable Victorians waiting days in emergency departments to access mental health beds will come as nothing new to the tens of thousands of Victorians struggling to navigate a complex, overloaded system.
Even without the pressure on the system due to COVID safety precautions, we’ve long known Victoria’s mental health system is in crisis.
Under Daniel Andrews, vulnerable Victorians are waiting longer to get the help they need which is pushing them closer to breaking point.
Dozens of reports have exposed this crisis within the system and made detailed recommendations for immediate change.
A Victorian Auditor-General’s Office report found “DHHS has done little to address the imbalance between demand for, and supply of, mental health services in Victoria”.
But two years later, Labor has arrogantly ignored this recommendation and still continues to kick the can down the road.
Next week’s release of the final report of the Royal Commission into Mental Health comes as another step in a long, drawn out process to fix Victoria’s mental health system.
The thousands of Victorians who contributed by telling their story will be relying on the Andrews Labor Government to listen and immediately act on the report’s recommendations.
The time for talk has long since passed. The Andrews Labor Government must finally do what it should have done years ago and get on with the job of fixing Victoria’s broken mental health system.
