The crisis in mental health: the chariot needs one horseman

Andrews, Gavin

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2005.tb06750.x

Topics

Better coordination costs no more and improves the lot of patients

How is it that Australia’s mental health services are in disarray? A Senate inquiry is mooted, and the press run stories of concern almost every week. Most of the stories are about failures in public-sector acute-care services that are the responsibility of the state and territory governments. Christopher Pyne, the Australian Government’s Parliamentary Secretary for Health said that “Australia’s states and territories stand condemned for their failure to deliver adequate mental health services . . . perhaps it is time for them to cede their responsibility for mental health to the Commonwealth”.1

University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.

Correspondence:

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