I have had a gutful of trying to navigate the mental health system here in Australia. It is a complete bin fire. It blows my already fragile mind that someone who is suffering severely from mental illness cannot access help and support, now if that isn’t bad enough, imagine if it is your child.
I have a child with complex issues and quite severe mental illness. He is only just a teenager. We have been accessing different sorts of minimal support for him since he was a baby and are lucky enough to have a small amount of NDIS funding which covers a few of the supports he needs, but it isn’t a lot. He is now at the stage where he needs further, more complex help, medication and diagnosing through a psychiatrist. Sounds simple enough right? Well it’s not. I have been searching for a psychiatrist for him for longer than I can count, firstly finding a child psychiatrist where we live is impossible, we live in a smaller and very limited community, so I look further away. The next problem is everyone’s books are closed, so I look even further away, I finally found two who would take him on, I was thrilled, finally we have help. It might be a two-hour or more drive for a kid that hates getting in a car, but we can do it. Beggars can’t be choosers. Then I got the list of fees. The first one charged, $800 per hour session and I was advised the first session will probably take 2 hours, so $1600 for an extended meet and greet. Wait what? He is 13! I am a single mum, I’m lucky to have $8 spare at the end of a week let alone $1600 and if I used the little NDIS funding we have, it would be gone almost immediately. I explained to her that this was completely outside my budget, could she suggest anyone else or any other options and was swiftly shunted back to my GP (as if we hadn’t already exhausted every name he had given us) The next psychiatrist charged between $900-$1000 per hour session. I cannot understand how this is legal. We are lucky to have Medicare in this country, and there is a small rebate but I would still be out of pocket minimum $500-$1000 a session. Is this the standard? Or have child psychiatrists taken advantage of the completely limited amount of mental health professionals and exploited the system? If I was rich, then it would not be a problem but most of us are not. Most of us are mums doing it alone, trying to help our kids, trying to help keep them out of hospitals, alive and growing into amazing members of society. It is a fucking farce, I am damn angry. Prior to this ring around of hell, I contacted a local, well known community mental health organisation (that I won’t name here) and I explained that my child had depression and needed some extra support, I also explained some of his other diagnosis, none of which I wanted them to treat, I was told, ‘He is too complicated and our staff wouldn’t be able to help him.’ Seriously? An organisation where kids go to talk, and they can’t listen to him? His GP can only help so much, he can’t even prescribe some of the medications he may need. So I am stuck. He has a psychologist he sees at most fortnightly, for which we are very lucky to have but it is not enough. He is drowning. During C*vid, the mental health care plan that usually allows ten Medicare subsidised sessions was doubled to twenty, due to the overwhelming demand for mental health support, late last year it was slashed back to ten. Apparently, the increase in Medicare subsidised sessions blew up wait lists and stressed the system, clearly the whole system is problematic, especially for those in a low income household and or a low socio-economic area. Surely this swell in demand showed the government that’s its citizens are suffering, that we need more support than ever, most can barely afford to live, people can’t even keep their homes, but what do they do? Slash the funding. There are herds of people and children falling through the cracks. Schools can only do so much, they are under enough pressure but also sometimes they just don’t get it right. Sometimes they expect our kids to perform miracles when getting them to school in the first place is hard enough. Sometimes they push out the kids they can’t deal with, make it someone else’s problem. The demand for programs that cater for children with mental illness and other diagnosis is also under pressure and places are extremely hard to access. There has to be a better way, why the hell is Australia spending $368 billion to buy three nuclear powered submarines from America, while our kids are going under? Biden has approved The Willow Project, so we don’t give a shit about the planet we are leaving for our kids either. It is a cluster fuck, the whole thing. I am mad as hell. I am exhausted from fighting daily for my children but I will NEVER give up. These kids are the ones who have to mop up the mess us adults are creating, and they are mad as hell too. They have limited power, they can’t vote (yet) and although they can protest (as they should) and fight for a better future for themselves, these withering old white men are making choices that won’t impact their own lifetimes but our children’s. I am fed up. We MUST do better. I don’t have any answers, but I hope to God that our smart, resourceful children can get it right, the pity is, they shouldn’t have too.
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