Joint Media Release: 220,00 NSW Families Left Out in the Cold as National Agreement Freezes

Mental Health Carers NSW and BEING – Mental Health Consumers, are urging the NSW Government to prioritise the next National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement, after it was pulled from today’s Health Ministers Meeting agenda.

Discussions were postponed to December after Commonwealth and state and territory negotiations stalled over psychosocial support funding, leaving families in uncertainty as cuts begin on 1 October.

BEING CEO, Giancarlo de Vera, said it was a matter of urgency that mental health be considered as soon as possible: “In NSW, we have at least 220,000 people who are in desperate need of psychosocial support and cannot access it, with thousands more to come as people are kicked off their NDIS supports in the coming weeks.”

Mental Health Carers NSW CEO, Jonathan Harms, said the burden falls on families when support is withdrawn: “95,000 carers in NSW needed support and did not get it. When a package is reduced the work doesn’t disappear. It lands on a mother, a partner, a sibling, unpaid and unseen. Families are the default when governments cannot agree, and they are already at capacity.”

Yesterday, a Sydney Morning Herald article was released about the State Governments mental health gap report result. Amber, who lives with schizophrenia, shared her story about the understaffing and lack of resources in North Sydney, with private clinics ill equipped to deal with her severe symptoms.

Her mother and CEO of Wayahead, Sharon Grocott, states: “There’s such a lack of continuity of care, Amber’s constantly having to repeat her symptoms and relive her story.”

Their story is just one of the more than 220,000 in NSW who are currently facing cuts to their psychosocial support packages.

Read the full media release here – https://buff.ly/tQidlJF
Read the article here – https://buff.ly/zqO76E6