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MENTAL HEALTH
The Victorian Government’s $1.5 billion promise to expand emergency departments to reduce waiting times is like trying to fix a blocked sink by installing a bigger sink. It might provide temporary relief, but it doesn’t address the blockage.
After nearly 30 years researching health services, particularly in rural and regional Australia, I have seen little evidence that expanding emergency departments alone provides sustainable solutions to overcrowding. The solutions lie largely outside emergency departments.
First, we must understand who is attending, why, and where they come from. Emergency department data provides a window into unmet community healthcare needs. Whether the problem is inadequate primary care, youth mental health services or support for older people, investment should target the local circumstances driving demand.
Second, we must address the barriers preventing patients from leaving emergency departments. Too often, patients cannot move into hospital beds because other patients cannot be discharged safely into appropriate community care.
Importantly, any investment must also address geographical inequity. Rural and regional Australians have fewer alternatives to emergency departments and must receive a fair share of funding.
Professor Leigh Kinsman, Rural Health Research chair, La Trobe University
Violence is never a sign of strength
Many of our leaders have said that we need to “turn the temperature down″ since Bondi, and the horrendous attack on Dr Helen Haines. But they don’t say how.
Over a long medical career, I’ve seen many angry and aggressive people and I think they are all suffering with anxiety, depression or other rarer mental health disorders.
I think a lot of men, and boys particularly, think that they need to appear to be tough by exhibiting verbal aggression and physical violence. I suspect that is the message received from social media algorithms or their own families.
I believe we need to change the narrative: violence is never a sign of strength, but rather a sign of mental health weakness.
The strongest men, women, and adolescents know to ask for help when they need it. Admitting that you may need help may be the bravest thing you ever do and accepting that help makes you a stronger more resilient person.
Non-violent people are the truly strong ones. They succeed by using their kindness, thoughtfulness and fairness, to improve the lives of us all, just as Helen Haines has always done.
Dr Jo McCubbin, Sale
Problem of untreated mental illness
The horrific attack on Helen Haines has raised a host of issues, not the least of which is mental health, especially the mental health of people living in isolated regional areas. But we need to be careful not to further stigmatise Australians with mental health problems.
The issue isn’t mental illness, but untreated mental illness. It is commonly said that governments can’t afford to provide adequate services to treat those with mental illness, but the truth is we can’t afford not to.
Paul Arnott, Ringwood East
Inadequate community-based support
Regardless of the factors that have contributed to the alleged attack on Helen Haines, this horrendous event has once again raised the issue of the under-resourcing of mental health services.
Many years ago, when long-term psychiatric hospitals were being closed, we were informed that adequate community-based care and support would be provided to a group of vulnerable people. It was never adequate then, and with the growing numbers of people who need support, it is very far from adequate now.
Rita Thorpe, Coburg
THE FORUM
Homicide patterns
The horrendous attack on Helen Haines has provoked much discussion about why such attacks are happening. Most of the focus has been on the impact of social media and violent commentary in public forums.
This distracts from the major cause in this and many other violent attacks on innocent civilians. People with severe mental health illnesses are not being managed effectively in our current health system.
Forty five people with psychotic disorders were charged with homicide from January 2024 to December 2025. Half were not under active treatment at the time (″Psychiatrists wanted to understand homicide patterns. They found a deadly warning″, 25/10).
Freedom of choice about treatment and freedom to wander unmonitored is resulting in a rising death toll of innocent victims. These people need close monitoring, compulsory medication and safe places to stay where they can be monitored.
Increases to mental health funding in recent years have focused on programs that cater to anxiety and depression in young people. Important as these are, there needs to be a different response to those with psychotic mental illness.
This is an urgent problem that needs a major change in how these people are treated and managed.
Katherine McGrath, Toorak
Care, kindness deficit
The Age news report (25/10) on the danger signs of the increasing psychotic behaviour of so many mentally disturbed Australians is relevant to the worrying attacks on MPs. It is also important that the well-being of Australians in everyday life is given maximum protection.
This will obviously be a momentous task needing far more thought than ″lowering the temperature″ in our immaturely conducted political system.
The news report shines a light on a hidden world of people who will randomly take lives.
Other news reports cover the despair of those who take their own lives. On average, over 3100 males and females suicide each year in Australia.
Care and kindness could be said to have been lacking in the past but is now an overdue priority.
Des Files, Brunswick
I’m one of the lucky ones
In 1995, I ran down my street naked. This unusual behaviour was caused by a manic episode of bipolar disorder, an illness that I have had since I was 18 years old.
The crisis assessment team was called and I was taken to Larundel, a government-operated psychiatric institution, where I was sectioned and treated with anti-psychotic medication.
Larundel closed in 1999, as part of the Victorian government’s policy of ‘deinstitutionalisation’ in which mental health services were incorporated within the general health sector.
While ostensibly driven by humanitarian intentions, deinstitutionalisation was in reality driven by the neo-liberal ideology of cost-cutting rather than patient well-being. Deinstitutionalisation required adequate investment into primary health care, social supports and housing, which wasn’t forthcoming.
The policy of deinstitutionalisation thus shifted care of people with psychosis to prisons, charities and families, who are often in no position to cope with the demands of mental illness.
I am one of the lucky ones. I have stayed well since my discharge from Larundel thanks to medication and an effective ‘stay well plan’. Unfortunately, many others don’t have access to the right treatments and supports.
Sarah Russell, Mt Martha
How to spend it
I am sure I am not the only person holding this opinion: at a state level and federally, conditions are chronic, with health services overwhelmed and understaffed. We have a housing crisis, a mental health crisis, our state schools are crumbling, and more and more people are struggling financially. I think of the $368 billion plus that has been allocated to AUKUS, and it is open and shut what my decision would be.
Julie Stafford, Ivanhoe East
It’s you who’s changed
Based on the responses of many recent Letters correspondents, at least some of the blame for the rising hostility in the community towards politicians can be attributed to the behaviour of the politicians themselves.
Such a view presupposes that political behaviour has somehow worsened over time. However, to reflect on the words and actions of politicians over the last 30 years reveals that little has really changed. There’s still the same theatrical name-calling. The same ad-hominem attacks. I would propose that what has actually changed is not the behaviour of the politicians but the attitudes of the public in terms of what we expect, or more accurately, demand, from these elected officials.
Rather than view politicians in terms of how they can serve the community as a whole, now we tend to view them in terms of how they can serve our own specialised interests. And when these people invariably fail to meet these expectations, their high-profile, public visibility makes them the perfect focus for our anger.
Instead of asking how politicians can improve their own conduct to reduce community anger, perhaps we should be asking how we ourselves can improve and modify our expectations for what these public servants can do for us.
Justin Shaw, Ringwood East
Don’t deregulate cannabis
Record numbers experiencing psychosis are being admitted to public hospitals (25/10). At the same time, Libertarian MP David Limbrick has recently espoused the legalisation of “recreational cannabis” with the addition that the state monopolises the trade to improve the budget bottom line.
The proposal is deeply flawed on a number of grounds.
Recreational usage can lead to long-term addiction and have catastrophic effects on users, their families, and society in general. The AMA has long warned against deregulating recreational cannabis. Overseas jurisdictions that have legalised cannabis are now trying to reverse these decisions due to crime and mental health issues that have subsequently arisen.
A state monopoly would inevitably attract a black market run by criminals supplying a cheaper product. Cannabis wars would join the tobacco wars.
Martin Newington, Aspendale
Melbourne is what it is
Yes, the Melbourne Assembly was a talk fest (Age editorial 24/10), and I agree that independent views from those less liveable and sustainable cities were perhaps questionable, but hey, it’s part of the chip-on-the shoulder mentality we carry as a penal colony.
The combination of visions (grid layout and Collins Street grandeur), later champions such as Rob Adams (Melbourne City Council), and yes, blind market forces (someone has to take the risk), have delivered a city which oscillates between the most liveable, and one which struggles with its true identity (hence the Assembly).
There is nothing wrong with the structure of Fed Square that re-activation of its commercial offer could not fix. When implemented, it was unique in city design, and eclipsed the urban spaces of other Australian cities. But as with all things these days, let’s just start again because someone says we should.
It’s really not about sprawl vs. high rise; it already is. A Paris-height opportunity is long gone, and that’s why we like going to Paris, when it is not setting itself on fire.
At the end of the day, it is Melbourne, and if two million visit the place each year, it must be pretty good.
Marc Bartsch urban planner, Wandin
Council steal
Re ″The council that stole Christmas: Permit change kills beloved neighbourhood party″, 25/10.
In recent decades there has been a general decline in local councils’ comprehension of the fundamental importance of helping local communities function well, especially important during times of hardship or rapid growth.
As much as The Age featured many cute stories of neighbours supporting each other during the tough COVID times we also know there were many dark days of desperate isolation for too many people.
Street parties are difficult to start during these difficult days but are needed to foster a sense of belonging and social connection, without which we humans go barmy pretty quickly.
It’s an inept decision for any council to impose financial imposts on residents trying to foster that social connection during the annual secular season of goodwill.
Bernadette George, Mildura
A little light cleaning
Ben Groundwater in ″My Airbnb host said I ‘trashed’ her flat. Why? I left some crumbs″ (Traveller 24/10), compared the costs of multiple rooms in a hotel to staying in a holiday let, claiming equivalence, and using this as justification for guests not doing any “heavy lifting”.
However, even if equivalent in price, we love staying in a holiday let because of the extra space and facilities.
Few hotel rooms would offer a large deck to congregate on, a big dining table for shared meals, a garden to relax or play in, a kitchen with all you need to cook in, comfortable couches and logs for the fire, a washer and dryer.
Holiday lets also allow you to feel part of a community, even for a short time, rather than being in the centre with a mass of tourists like yourself.
I think the benefits are good enough to justify a little light cleaning, taking the bins out and simply wiping the kitchen benches down.
It doesn’t have to be slave labour, just showing some care and respect for someone else’s property.
Jan Williamson, Essendon
AND ANOTHER THING
Elections
The cat is out of the bag (″Lib candidate advises One Nation vote in upper house″ 25/10). Liberal candidate Simmone Cottom was caught encouraging people to vote for One Nation in the upper house. It is time for Jess Wilson to be clear about any One Nation Liberal coalition agreement.
David Baker, Parkdale
It matters little that Simmone Cottom regretted saying that vote One Nation in the upper house. The fact is that she said it, and found it quite acceptable.
Les Aisen, Elsternwick
The Greens are the only party that takes climate change seriously. Why isn’t that stated proudly on every corflute, flyer, and how-to-vote card?
Geoff Cumming, Woodend
Now that Pauline Hanson has discovered satire (particularly when it comes to cartoons mocking her colleagues), I think it’s time for Pauline Pantsdown to re-release Back Door Man. It was an absolute banger.
Elizabeth Long, Fawkner
Trumpworld
We know that to repeat the same behaviour and expect a different result is insanity. AUKUS is insanity. It’s time to swap out the US and welcome our Canadian friends. It’s a CAUK-er!
Lee Guion, Portarlington
Donald Trump digs himself into another hole claiming release of Stephen Hubbard had nothing to do with reward. I would say purchase of Russian oil had a lot to do with it.
Dan Drummond, Leongatha
Furthermore
Are Tesla drivers becoming the new Volvo drivers? Their lack of awareness is mind boggling.
Craig Tucker, Newport
I decided to organise a street party and see if we could close a road. What a nightmare of paper work and insurance. So I decided to have the party at our house. I letter boxed the invitations and asked all who attend to bring a plate and something to drink.
Christine Hammett, Richmond
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