[Greens-Media] Emergency response to mental health crisis is no response: WA Greens

[Richards, Kirsten]

Greens Spokesperson for Mental Health Alison Xamon has called for urgent action on the inadequacy of emergency mental health responses.

The call came in a speech in Parliament where Ms Xamon gave the shocking example of a recent incident where both the emergency health services and the police failed to attend in response to emergency calls from the mother of an adult son in the grip of a psychotic episode.

"The son, who lives with chronic paranoid schizophrenia  suffered a serious psychotic episode and needed urgent help from professionals," Ms Xamon said.

"The mother called the Mental Health Emergency Response Line (MHERL), as advised by the Mental Health Commission website.

"The website says this is a dedicated phone line for emergency help 24 hours a day.

"But when this mother rang MHERL she was told that there was no-one available to help her, and to simply hang up and to call the police.

"Because the situation was so serious, the mother did ring 000. Yet four hours later the police had still not arrived.

"Disturbingly this is by no means an isolated incident.

"I keep hearing about MHERL offering no help and/or police taking hours to respond to a mental health emergency if they respond at all.

"Ringing an emergency response line only for the caller to be told to ring the police is a completely unacceptable situation.

"The website is setting up false hope for people who really need help.

"The reality is that emergency mental health response in this state remains completely inadequate.

"This issue is then compounded by the delays or the complete failure of the police to turn up.

"That is intolerable for everyone involved.

"The ideal situation, obviously, would be for trained mental health clinicians to be part of any emergency response.

"Sending very young or inexperienced officers, without adequate training, to a highly volatile mental health situation places the unwell person, the family and any bystanders at risk.

"Unfortunately though, due to our inadequate mental health services, the police are often the only option for a response when someone is suffering an acute mental illness.

"This continues to contribute to the daily burden of worry experienced by the family and loved ones of people who live with serious mental illness.

"Because of the inadequacy of the initial emergency mental health response not only are people finding themselves denied timely treatment in many situations, leading to an exacerbation of the illness, but family members feel as though they are shouldering this huge burden alone.

"I am told that failures to respond to mental health emergencies occur every day in the community.

"This is a really serious issue.  I urge the Minister to start looking specifically into the limitations and failures of MHERL.

"I also urge the minister to take this matter up with the Police Minister.

"I am sure that everyone would agree that when people are in quite serious circumstances and ring 000 and relay the seriousness of those concerns, to then not even have the police turn up when they are expecting the police to arrive at any moment, is completely unacceptable."