Dear FertilityPsych Clients and Friends,
As you may be aware, our service is delivered by a highly skilled team of psychiatrists, all of who have worked in the public hospital system and some of who continue to do so.
We strongly support the action taken by NSW psychiatrists to resign from their roles in the NSW public system, the primary goal of which is to force the NSW government to fix a broken system.
Please note this action does not directly impact FertilityPsych appointments, but we respect and wish to assist our colleagues with bringing attention to the plight of public psychiatry in NSW. We would greatly appreciate your help with this.
If you share our views, please pass on your opinion via one of the following two methods:
Email Campaigns: You can email Chris Minns (NSW State Premier) and Rose Jackson (NSW Minister for Mental Health), or, if you don’t live in NSW, Mark Butler (Australian Minister for Health and Aged Care) using the addresses below:
The following wording can be cut and pasted into an email:
Dear XXXX (from the list above)
I am a concerned resident of Australia who is appalled at the NSW government’s handling of the psychiatry workforce crisis. I believe that everyone in NSW deserves a functional and well-resourced public mental health system that can offer effective and safe care to vulnerable people in crisis who cannot afford to pay, or wait, for private mental health care.
In federal Health Minister Mark Butler’s own words, the plight of those with severe mental illness is a “stain on our nation” and “a shocking reflection on our community”. Despite being the state with the highest population, NSW has invested the least per capita on all mental health services compared to all other states and territories in Australia.
I am concerned that your government feels that people with mental illness are less deserving of access to a trained medical specialist than patients with other medical conditions. It is clear that psychiatry is an essential part of mental health care, and that – prior to the recent resignations – we have urgently needed far more psychiatrists in the public mental health system. Minister Jackson’s suggestions to replace psychiatrists with other health professionals are deeply disturbing and reflective of a lack of knowledge of the crucial and distinct roles within multidisciplinary teams in mental health. The duties of a psychiatrist should only be performed by those who have completed the minimum of 12 years of training required (medical school and specialist psychiatry training), and completed their psychiatry examinations.
There is no health without mental health, and mental health is inextricably linked to homelessness, productivity and capacity to engage in work and the broader economy. By crippling the mental health system and refusing to address the urgent recruitment and retention crisis in psychiatry, you not only betray your stigma to those with mental illness but also a lack of understanding of the undeniable link between mental health and a flourishing NSW.
I urge you, and the NSW government, to address the concerns raised by NSW Psychiatrists and show your commitment to improving the mental health care of the people of our state.
Yours sincerely