Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to thank the member for Reid, Dr Martin, for raising this very important issue. I want to commend all the other speakers who have spoken on this issue, including my friend and colleague the member for Dobell, who had long-term experience working in a mental health unit at her local hospital as a pharmacist. I have dealt with suicide on a professional basis since I started my paediatric career, and I indeed remember some of the kids that I looked after who ultimately suicided. I know that their suicides have had a huge effect on their families and on our wider community. On a personal level, I've also had involvement with a family member who suicided and I know how deeply and profoundly it's affected my family.

I do agree that this is an issue for bipartisanship. And I do agree that the government should be congratulated on its focus on mental health. However, I don't think that at the present time we have the right answer. For example, my view is that suicide, whilst it is a complex issue, is often due to a lack of connection. We can see that in the way that the incidents of suicide have slowly increased in the last few years. We can see that in the defence forces. The risk of suicide is not so much when people are a member of the defence forces; it's when they leave. Their feelings of isolation, I feel sure, have a significant impact on the risk of suicide for people who leave the defence forces. I think there is much to be done to try to address that.

I think we can see it also in the young people who suicide, particularly young males, and in the difficulties they face in this current society in education, in getting a job and even in things like getting stable housing. These difficulties all increase, I think, the risk of suicide. The answer is not necessarily putting a headspace in every suburb. It's rather in how we increase people's connection to society in general.

I think desperately of a boy who I looked after, Liam. I looked after him when he was born and during the subsequent difficulties that he faced. He surmounted some incredible difficulties and did very well. But it was when he left school and had difficulty getting a tertiary education and difficulty getting into the workforce that his troubles really reached a peak and he ultimately suicided. But, prior to his suicide, he'd had 17 admissions to our local hospital's mental health unit. In those 17 admissions, the people who cared for him did not care for him once he was discharged, and there was no adequate discharge plan in place when he left hospital. I think that's something that we're missing a lot. There is often a lack of connection between the mental health services provided in our hospitals and mental health units and the mental health services provided in the community. There is much to be done in terms of improving our communication networks for those that have mental illness. I think desperately of the things that perhaps I could've done to change that outcome.

I know that many people who are admitted to hospital with severe mental illness lose the ability to be followed up once they go back into the community. They often face enormous troubles getting into the education system, enormous difficulties getting stable housing and enormous difficulties getting mental health treatment that provides for them in an ongoing, meaningful way. I'm talking about things like help with continuing to take their medications, for example. It's very common for people with severe mental illness to be discharged on medication and then have difficulty following on with that after discharge.

There's much more to be done. Whilst I congratulate the government for its efforts, we need to do much more to improve communication between our services.

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