Almost six months after hundreds of hospital psychiatrists tendered their resignations amid ongoing pay negotiations, the doctors’ union and NSW Health delivered their closing statements in the Industrial Relations Commission last week.
As has been well reported, the impact of the psychiatrists’ action was not a 206-person reduction in doctors on wards. Sixty-two of the doctors have actually resigned (although it’s expected some have returned to hospital work as well-paid locums) as the rest wait for the outcome of the arbitration.
Even if these doctors remain in the system, the resourcing issues facing public mental health services are clear. Fears for the future of mental health care amid growing demand were highlighted by new government workforce data, published this week.
The Psychiatry Supply and Demand Study, the release of which was endorsed by a meeting of the nation’s health ministers on June 13, revealed there will be a predicted 20 per cent undersupply of psychiatrists by 2048, as more people are diagnosed with and seek treatment for mental health conditions.
The data shows NSW has fewer full-time equivalent psychiatrists per 100,000 in the population than every other state bar Western Australia. Anecdotal evidence of NSW psychiatrists leaving the system to receive higher paid public hospital work in other states is one of the key arguments in the union’s pay claim.
In the same week, as Kate Aubusson wrote in Saturday’s Herald, a new report on women’s mental health has raised serious concerns about a lack of access to care, particularly for women with physical health conditions specific to their sex, who are, according to the report, more likely to experience mental illness than women in the general population (45 per cent compared to 24 per cent).
Loading
The report from The George Institute for Global Health and Liptember Foundation was highly critical of Australia’s “gender-neutral” approach to mental health care, saying it failed women living with conditions such as PTSD, anxiety and depression, shown to be more prevalent in those women with endometriosis and gynaecological cancers, as well as those who have experienced birth trauma.
Researchers will report their findings to federal Health Minister Mark Butler this week. Their concerns about the system’s ability to provide adequate care should be no surprise to Butler, given his sign-off on the workforce report.
Meanwhile, the full bench of the Industrial Relations Commission has adjourned to consider how to resolve the dispute between the state’s hospital psychiatrists and their employer.
Read the full article here
