McGorry: we’re all to blame – the system needs to change | ticker VIEWS

More than 340 Victorian teenagers every week have been admitted to hospital suffering mental health emergencies

340. This isn’t a fun story, its alarming and that’s what it should be.

It’s a 57 per cent increase on the same period last year, and one of the best in the mental health business says it’s not just teenagers.

Professor Pat McGorry says he’s meeting with Victorian government ministers and the Australian Prime Minister and that he’s showing them his emotion, you can sense that he’s had enough.

“This is something we predicted last year, we did modelling for the state government and predicted 30% of the beer 30% rise in need for care across the lifespan, especially for young people as much as teenagers,” McGorry said.

“The system is unable to really provide the sort of care that they need at the moment. So alarmed is probably the right word to describe it. We’ve had some very positive meetings with the state government in that in the last few days, and we’re working on an urgent workforce plan to kind of reinforce and strengthen the system so we can respond better,

“But the problem is that we’ve been operating with the middle health system that’s not fit for purpose for many years, and the Royal Commission has basically addressed that, but it’s going to take time to rebuild in an effective way.”

Now its not a blame game but McGorry says we should all take blame, politicians and the people, and what we need is go from the old system that hasn’t worked, into the new…

Part of the problem is services and hospitals are completely over-run, heading to emergency is the only option.

People talk about mental health, polticians, leaders, lots words and then money. The pressure to change the system need to continue. McGorry says so.