The MHCSA took the extraordinary step of publicly calling for the release of the ‘Unmet Needs Study’, because we knew that the number of South Australians living with acute and severe mental illness going without the psychosocial support they need would have grown since estimates of 11000 in 2020.
We had also been communicating our view regarding how important it is to address this unmet need for psychosocial support outside of the NDIS for a number of years. This includes sending our ‘Case for Investment in psychosocial support’ paper to all MPs prior to the last election and to the new MPs following the election. We have presented and written submissions to numerous inquiries including an SA inquiry where the recommendations included fixing this problem. In our budget submission this year we urged Minister Picton to start addressing this problem given we already knew there were at least 11000 people. And yet we were told to wait until the Report comes out.
Then we became aware that the Report had been finished prior to the State Budget and yet there was nothing in that Budget to address this issue. We thank the Minister for finally releasing the Report and you can read the Report in full here.
This landmark Study shows us that the number of South Australians living with acute and severe mental illness going without the psychosocial support they need has ballooned to 19,000 people each year.
The Report also quantifies how much the Government needs to spend to fix this gap and it is a relatively modest $125m which is less than half of the budget surplus the Government is planning to bank this year.
And the Minister’s response – it appears that the only action on the table is to send this to Canberra. There is no talk of dollar commitments or timelines. We believe that 19000 South Australians deserve more. We are calling on the Minister to fix this now and not pass the buck to Canberra.
You can read our summary of the Report here.
