ASSISTANT MINISTER EMMA MCBRIDE: Today is a really important day to be here in Bathurst, and I want to thank Aunty Shirley for her generous Welcome to Country. This is a significant day for local people in Bathurst and the wider Central Tablelands, the first Medicare Mental Health Centre to be open officially here today.
Medicare Mental Health Centres are designed to be safe places that are welcoming and that will remove any barriers to accessing support and care for people and their friends and family. So, for this Medicare Mental Health Centre you won't need an appointment, you won't need a referral from your GP, you won't need a Medicare Mental Health Treatment Plan. Services and support will be tailored to you to meet your needs in a wraparound holistic way.
This is a significant investment in this community and also in mental health services around the country. It’s part of the national program of Medicare Mental Health Centres, including 32 in New South Wales. And I was pleased in the recent Federal Election to secure another $225 million to expand these programs right across the country.
I used to work in mental health and what I saw was too many people not being able to get support close to home when they needed it, and affordably. Medicare Mental Health Centres overcome all of those barriers. As I mentioned, you don’t need a referral from a GP, you don’t need a Medicare Mental Health plan, you don’t need an appointment and you can just walk in. The services are open extended hours and across the week to meet the needs of local. So, you can walk in here from 11am until 7pm Monday to Friday, and 4pm to 8pm on weekends and public holidays. So, across the week and across the day people can get the support and care that they need.
I'm so proud to be part of a government that is bringing mental health into the heart of Medicare and services into the centre of communities. I want to acknowledge the local MP, Andrew Gee, congratulate him on his recent re-election, and to thank him for his support of this service in the community. And also to acknowledge the staff that work in these services, the partnership with Stride, also with Clarity and Wellways. We know that the strength of the model is only because of the people that work within it - the compassion they bring, the expertise and the experience they bring to providing really empathetic and person-centred care that is grounded in local communities. All of these centres are co-designed with the local community to meet the gaps in services, to make sure that they're properly integrated, and to make sure that they better strengthen collaborations so that someone can have a seamless experience of support and care.
I might hand over to Barbara and Andrew to make some comments.
BARBARA GEDDES: Yes.
ANDREW GEE: Yeah.
GEDDES: So, building on what Emma's just been talking about is we've created a beautiful warm environment where people can come for some information, advice, possibly referrals to other services. We've been working very closely, as we've been building up to opening, with our partners such as LHD and the community mental health team, and many other services in the region to help make the experience for people to access mental health services smooth as possible.
We know it's a very difficult and challenging period in people's lives. If you've got something on your mind you just want to have a chat about, or you actually feel like you need something happening to boost your mental health and wellbeing, then by all means drop in and have a chat with us. We'd love to talk to you.
GEE: Well, thank you for joining us everyone here today, from wherever you've come from, whatever organisation you are with. It's terrific to see you all here, pretty much all of you working in mental health and improving mental health services for our communities.
Bolstering mental health services and support is vital for our country communities and this cost of living crisis has had devastating effects right across the nation, but also in our country communities, and those effects are being felt right across our region. And so, improving mental health support and services and bolstering that support is absolutely crucial for the residents of our area. And one of the great things about this centre is its accessibility. So, people will be able to come in here seven days a week, which is really important. You don't need an appointment; you can just come straight in. And it's right in the CBD, right in the heart of Bathurst, so it's easy to get to.
And a lot of people are going to access this service because I think for many people needing to get a referral for mental health support, it can take weeks, it can take months. And for a lot of folks out there it can all just be too hard. And I think the issue for a lot of people with mental health is you need the support straight away, you need to be able to talk to someone straight away. And this centre will actually stay with its clients every step of the way through that process of getting the support that they need, and I think that's really important. The support and the care just doesn't stop with one or two interviews. The staff here at this centre will stay with a client every step of the way to ensure that they get the support and the services that they need.
And so, I think that's going to be a game changer for a lot of people and it's going to mean that more people get the help that they need And it means that more people will be able to live a better quality of life because they will get that support. And that's what it's all about. This centre will make life better for the people that come to it for the help and support. And I think that's something to be very proud of.
So, Emma and Barbara, well done to the Government, but also the team here at this centre for your work and commitment to improving the mental health outcomes for people in this area. As I've said, improving mental health outcomes for country residents and country communities is absolutely crucial. And I think the opening of this centre is a really important step and a milestone in the provision of mental health services in the Central West. And I'm sure it will be a very large success and a significant success and hopefully we can roll out more of these across the region as time goes on.
So, to all of you who are working in mental health in this area, I just want to say thank you for all of the work that you are doing and for the difference that you are making to people's lives. Because as a local MP, I see it all the time. People with mental health issues, people working in mental health and the importance of getting support to where it's needed.
This week I was in at Wattle Tree House and I've also been up to Vinnie's just speaking to the folks up there about the services and the support that they need. Mental health and mental health support for their clients comes up every single time. So, the work that you are all doing is absolutely crucial and I would like to extend the thanks of a grateful community for all of the work that you're doing. Thank you.
MCBRIDE: Thank you.
JOURNALIST: You don’t mind if I throw a few questions out there.
MCBRIDE: Happy to take questions, yeah.
JOURNALIST: Yeah. Just in terms of the programs and the support offered here, is it a referral service or can people access counselling? How does that all work here?
MCBRIDE: This service is available to everyone and for free. Somebody could walk in for information and advice. Someone might need appointments with a counsellor or with a social worker or with a psychologist, and all of that can be provided for them in a very compassionate way when they need it and for free. So, as has been mentioned, no need for a referral from a GP, although referrals are welcome, and no need for an appointment. So, you can come in when you need it at that time when you're most seeking support and care. And importantly, it's for free.
The local member has mentioned cost, and we know for so many people and families the out-of-pocket costs of mental health support and care have meant that they've delayed or been unable to access care. And that's what these services are about - making care free when people need it and close to home.
JOURNALIST: I know accessing mental health support, particularly in regional areas, can be quite difficult and challenging. It takes, I guess, a lot of courage to come up and say you need help. But previously, it might have been done through GP’s and stuff. Did the government identify an issue there with, I guess, accessibility? Is that why these are opening?
MCBRIDE: This has been something that's been identified by people and communities right across the country. Especially the further you get out of a major city; the access to support and care has been harder to receive. So, that's one of the parts of this design, is this is a national network, so, it's under the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement, bilateral agreements with each state and territory. And as I said, I was so proud to be able to secure another $225 million in the recent election to be able to strengthen and expand these centres. In a couple of weeks we should be opening the new Medicare Mental Health Centre in Dubbo, and that will be working alongside the centre here in Bathurst to meet the needs of people in the broader community.
But yes, that's the intention. We know that for too long it's been too hard and too expensive for people to be able to access support and care. And these centres here in Bathurst, soon in Dubbo, one in Wagga, will reduce the barriers to accessing care, increase the timeliness that people can receive it and, ultimately, provide much better care for people, their friends, and their families.
JOURNALIST: This one in Bathurst will cover a huge catchment area. Do you have any, I guess, idea of the estimated figures of people coming through the door here?
MCBRIDE: We know that in communities across the country that distress is increasing, whether that's because of drought or natural disasters, cost of living, the pressures of day-to-day life. That has- was increasing but for many places did accelerate through COVID, and there's been a long tail of that pandemic in mental health distress. In the most recent data that we have, about one in five Australians will experience a mental health distress in their lifetime, and we know that that's happening for younger people more often and earlier in life.
So, what we're doing is expanding Medicare Mental Health Centres at the same time as we're expanding our headspace network, which is designed for young people aged 12 to 25. In the recent election, we made commitments to headspace plus, which will be a new model of care to be able to catch people- younger people with more complex and ongoing mental health needs, and also a commitment to expert centres across the country as well. So what we're trying to do is, across the lifetime, be able to make sure that services and support available for free in local communities, given that growing need and the demand on services.
JOURNALIST: On a local level, and I apologise it's a state issue as well, but one of the mental health services here in Bathurst, the Panorama Clinic, has temporarily relocated to Orange and that has caused a bit of concern and upset. This place here, this centre here opening, does that, I suppose, help fill the gap?
MCBRIDE: As I understand, the Panorama Clinic is a sub-acute clinic, and patients will now, and staff, be working from Orange. That is part of a $200 million reinvestment and redevelopment of the Bathurst Hospital, which will include that clinic being a new clinic for the community in Bathurst in the near future.
What this service is designed to do is to meet the needs of people in the community sooner so distress doesn't become crisis, and so that somebody hopefully avoids the need for an admission to an inpatient clinic. So, what we've seen here in Bathurst and right across the country is that people weren't able to get the support that they needed, and that meant that distress could then end up in crisis. And some people then ended up needing to be- go to emergency departments and have in-patient stays. So, this service is designed to provide support sooner, closer to home so, hopefully, more people don't end up needing that kind of more acute support and care.
JOURNALIST: Yeah, sure. Sorry for keeping everyone. I'll just ask one or two more questions as well.
MCBRIDE: Yeah, sure.
JOURNALIST: We know services out here are screaming out for more support. I guess by referring more people on to psychologists, psychiatrists, what have you, is that going to add more pressure on them, or is this kind of hoping to ease that pressure?
MCBRIDE: So, as part of this model, and it will be happening in the coming months, there'll be a virtual network set up of psychiatrists and psychologists. So, if someone was to walk into the Medicare Mental Health Centre in Bathurst and needed additional support, and the psychologist here wasn't available or there was a psychologist that had better expertise to meet their needs, that would be able to be arranged for them.
So, we understand that there has been, and we're working on it, both the shortages and the workforce distribution of psychologists and psychiatrists. So, this new national virtual network that all of the Medicare Mental Health Centres will be linked to will mean that everyone, whichever centre they walk into, whether it's here in Bathurst or in the future in Dubbo or in Tuggerah in my community, will then be able to be linked to a national network of psychologists and psychiatrists.
Another thing I would also say is that, and having spoken to Barbara yesterday and hearing this at the now 38th Medicare Mental Health Centre that we've opened across the country, these are really attractive places for mental health workers to work from whether they're someone with lived experience or a clinical practitioner. Because they provide wraparound care. They're the kind of model that practitioners know work and that communities need. And we've found that they're a very attractive place to recruit staff to. So, I'm very confident that we will have the right kind of team, multidisciplinary care team, including lived experience, working from these centres. But also, to bolster that, by having them linked to a national virtual network of psychiatrists and psychologists. So, if somebody does need additional support or a different kind of support, that will also be available to them and, importantly, for free.
JOURNALIST: One more - sorry, everyone. Just on this is the first one in the Central West. Just in terms of funding, how much?
MCBRIDE: Yes. So this one is $1.8 million over four years, and this is commissioned through the Primary Health Network on behalf of the Commonwealth Government. And this one is co-funded by the State Government. As I mentioned, there is an exist- there is additional $225 million as an election commitment to expand the network by another, around, 30 across the country, which will take the centres up to around 90 nationally - a third of those in New South Wales. So, it's a significant investment from the Commonwealth and in partnership with the state governments. And also to properly acknowledge the delivery partners, Stride, Wellways, Clarity, because it's through them that we'll be able to provide this direct support and care to the local community.
But I'm really proud to be part of a government that's committed $1 billion in the recent election to bolster mental health support and care. As a pharmacist who worked in acute inpatient units in a regional service, I saw for too long people missing out on support and care, and the consequences of that for them, for the health services, but more importantly, for our communities. So, this is an investment not just in mental health and well-being, but it's an investment in communities and particularly communities like this in Bathurst and across the Central West.
JOURNALIST: Barbara, really, really quickly.
GEDDES: Sure.
JOURNALIST: Just in terms of staff and what sort of team you have here, what sort of numbers, how’s that all working?
GEDDES: So Bathurst being the smallest centre, we have got a few psychosocial support workers, and we will have a couple of mental health clinicians as well, plus a team that supports us to make sure that we're up and running. And for Dubbo, it will be about twice the size again, so we're going to be a much bigger team there. So, the psychosocial team and the clinical team will be, roughly, around about the same size and work very, very closely together to help, as Emma's mentioned, that beautiful wraparound care and helping people to feel that they're being listened to and that they're going to get more timely help.
JOURNALIST: Are you expecting big demand here?
GEDDES: I think we will. I think it's going to grow that way. We're already getting quite a lot of interest from people who are finding us on social media and having the courage to step in and try something new. And I think, once that starts to filter out, I’m expecting we’ll be quite busy.
MULTIPLE SPEAKERS: Thank you.