Greens will restore funding to mental health

Today, on World Mental Health Day, the Victorian Greens have launched their $270 million commitment to restore funding to mental health.

The Policy includes:

·         $200m over 4 years to restore funding to Community Mental Health Services to provide care to people who are not NDIS eligible.

·         $10 million to embed sexual safety practices and reforms in our mental health services.

·         $12 million to construct a new youth dedicated clinical prevention and recovery care facility.

·         $48 million over four years for dedicated youth clinical services.

Quotes attributable to Lidia Thorpe, Victorian Greens Spokesperson for Mental Health:

“When people cannot get public care in the community, they end up in our already over-burdened hospital emergency departments. The growing gap in community services has seen a 19% increase in mental health presentations in emergency departments in the past 4 years.”

“Labor can no longer call itself the party of health when Victoria has the lowest per capita expenditure on mental health in the country and access to mental health services is nearly 40 per cent below the national average.”

“Tens of thousands of Victorians with serious and complex mental health needs currently receive no support services thanks to the cuts to community mental health services by the previous Liberal Government, which the Andrews Government has failed to fix.”

“Youth mental health services we are also woefully underfunded in Victoria. Here, youth receive clinical mental health services at a rate of 50% less than the national average.”

“Women still suffer appalling rates of sexual abuse while in mental health care, which is a time they are most vulnerable. It’s just not good enough and far more can be done to stop it.”