Jen Smith and Anne-Marie Boxall describe our health system’s failure to provide effective care to people who suffer from both mental illness and drug or alcohol addiction. This group double-slip: they fall between two hassled services with no time or energy for their care. Boxall and Smith reiterate the recommendations of the Not for Service report which called for funding to support integrated drug and alcohol and mental health services to become a national priority
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Jennifer Smith
Articles by Jennifer Smith:
The Intersection of Mental Illness and the ‘Criminal Justice System’ in Australia
Jennifer Smith and Anne-Marie Boxall write, Preventing those with mental illness ending up in prisons should be a high priority. Policies that promote early intervention and enhance mental health crisis teams and other community-based supports would be a constructive start. Within the ‘criminal justice’ system (where the mentally ill frequently receive little justice), there needs to be a fundamental shift in the management of mental health problems.
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Are we planning for failure? The crisis in the mental health workforce in Australia
Jennifer Smith and Anne-Marie Boxall write, ‘the public mental health system had become a revolving door for those with mental illness. Only very complex cases were seen in the public system; their admissions were brief and focused solely on stabilisation through medication
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Health: Did you know?
Did you know…
That in their recent submission to the Senate Select Committee on Mental Health, the AMA listed mental health as one of the ‘two weakest links in the Australian health care system’, the other being indigenous health?
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