Mental health service under cloud
Lamp chief executive Lorrae Loud says the mental health organisation’s Busselton facilities will bear the brunt of closures in the South West after the Federal Government cut $360,000 in funding.
Facilities in Margaret River and Bridgetown will be closed by the end of the year with only a satellite service remaining in the two towns, as Lamp’s Busselton office deals with the 300 service users affected by the changes.
The fallout from the cuts begs the question of what the future looks like for the Busselton facility, which will also close on nights and weekends as a cost-saving measure.
Ms Loud held crisis talks with State Mental Health Minister Helen Morton earlier this week to discuss Lamp’s future, after what has been described as Federal cost-shifting by the Department of Social Services.
“This is our concern, they’re going to push (mental health) back 20 years, ” Ms Loud said.
South West MLC Adele Farina said Lamp’s distress was compounded by a lack of certainty around the availability of State block funding post-2016.
“The Minister for Mental Health, Helen Morton, has said (State) funding contracts will be tendered in 2016, but Lamp was told it would be able to tender for Federal contracts this year only, to find that wasn’t the case and with no warning, so the Minister’s rather weak assurances provide little comfort, ” she said.
Mrs Morton said State Government funding for Lamp through the Mental Health Commission and Department for Child Protection and Family Support would be unaffected “for another couple of years”.
She declined to vouchsafe funding beyond 2016 because of the State Government’s National Disability Insurance Scheme’s trial, which was yet to be assessed.
The Budget cuts coincide with the trial of the NDIS, and Ms Loud said she understood fewer than 3 per cent of people seeking help for mental illness would be eligible under the new scheme.
“When people become unwell with a mental illness, they want something very tangible they can walk into, ” she said.
“If there are no centres in local areas, it raises the risk.”
Ms Farina said people considered ineligible for the NDIS would also be ineligible for the disability pension, which was “a cruel and heartless fate” for people suffering episodic mental illness.
Assistant Social Services Minister Mitch Fifield said the NDIS had “come a fair way” because it wasn’t initially designed for people with mental health issues, and it would not replace the existing health system.
Senator Fifield said people who couldn’t access NDIS support had other programs, but he listed organisations like Headspace in Bunbury as alternatives.
Ms Loud said the amount Lamp needed to operate its programs seemed minimal in terms of overall government funding, and said it was “lip service” to put funding into Bunbury. She said Lamp would have to address State Government funding in 2015.
Federal Health Minister Peter Dutton did not respond to enquiries.
