persevererSenior Contributor
Here Are Ten Things I Wish Would Change
1. I would like it to be mandatory for mental health patients to be interviewed in the presence of a carer, at least for part of the interview.
2. There needs to be a dramatic increase in psychiatrists. Every regional centre should have a psychiatrist.
3. Every public hospital should have at least one resident psychiatrist.
4. There needs to be a special benefit available to carers who are caring for several people with a disability or who need to give up work to be able to do so, and it needs to be about 10 times as much as the current carer's payment.
5. Police need to do an inservice annualy on Mental Health issues as they affect families. Particular emphasis needs to go on how to assist families in which someone has gone missing.
6. Psychiatrists also need to do inservices on how Mental Illness affects the whole family and in particular, where most or all of the family has MI issues.
7. CAT teams should be replaced with a regional service in which every major town has a psychiatrist, a psychiatric nurse and a social worker who visit you in the home during a crisis.
8. The number of beds for psychiatric patients in public hospitals needs to dramatically increase. A large weight of emphasis for decision making about hospitalization should be with the carer.
9. The government needs to employ service personnel who will pose as visitors but are secretly observing the staff on psyche wards to check on their bedside manner and level of care.
10. There need to be separate areas in psychiatric wards for patients who are not violent, loud or angry and need to be in a place of quietude.
