Around this time last century, the medical profession was experimenting with lobotomies and lunatic asylums. Today, we have moved on to suicide crisis helplines, community-based treatment programs and awareness campaigns that combat the stigma once associated with seeking help for a mental health diagnosis. As the stigma of seeking treatment falls away, and education teaches people what to look for, more Australians than ever are trying to access support. According to Mindframe, one in every five Australians will experience a mental illness each year with women and young people the most likely to seek help.
As far as revolutions go, this qualifies. The transition from a phase in human history where the mentally ill were considered a separate group to be policed and segregated, to one where people needing help are deserving of sympathy and support is groundbreaking.
Problem is, it’s not your revolution if you can’t afford to participate. By taking mental health seriously, access to ongoing and professional support from qualified mental health practitioners has the capacity to save lives, but in a world where the divide between those with, and those without, has been growing, the benefits of this development have largely been captured by those with money, at the expense of those who arguably need it most.
It’s not your revolution if you can’t afford to participate.
Understanding how to fix it, means understanding how mental health services are currently provided in Australia. For those without private health insurance, mental health care is provided through Medicare. While it’s good that such a safety net exists, the bad news is that it is full of holes.
Typically, finding support for a mental health condition starts with a visit to a GP and getting a Mental Health Care Plan. Once in place, a patient can get access to up to ten subsidised sessions with a mental health practitioner a year.
The issues here are obvious: Ten sessions a year may be enough for a person with a mild condition that doesn’t need ongoing support, but for anyone needing something more, they’re in trouble. If that person needs weekly support, those ten sessions are only going to cover a fifth of all medical expenses for a year, if you can find a practitioner who bulk bills and are not in urgent need you can wait to get to the top of the list.
For every $1 spent on improving mental health within a business, earned a $3.20 return.
Those who need a significant level of care and are racking up thousands of dollars in bills can eventually get to a point where they meet a Medicare Safety Net threshold, depending on their circumstances. Catch is, you still need to spend thousands of dollars on treatment to even reach that point.
For anyone on welfare or a low income, spending $100 on psychiatric or psychological help means weighing their mental health needs against the week’s rent or groceries. You don’t need to be a medical professional to see how the fiscal stresses amplify existing anxiety, feeding the two-way connection between poverty and mental health where the presence of one can deepen the other.
Combating this means fighting for better coverage, but doing so also requires communicating this need in terms politicians, economists and business leaders understand: in dollars and cents.
The cost of limited access to mental health care in the country, the community and the individual is well known. The latest data from Mental Health Services in Australia shows Australia spent somewhere in the region of $8.5 billion ($361 a person) on mental health care during the 2014-2015 period.
When Pricewaterhouse Coopers assessed the cost of mental illness on business, it found people skipping work due to poor mental health cost the Australian economy $4.7 billion each year with another $6 billion in lost productivity among those who try to soldier on, despite being unwell. The same report also found that every $1 spent on improving mental health within a business, earned a $3.20 return.
Additionally, those who are unemployed are more likely to develop psychological issues over time, which then present a barrier to trying to find work again. Expanding Medicare to offer better access to mental health practitioners, and generally being smarter about where the money goes, will help people back into work, get them paying taxes while also reducing how much the government spends on welfare.
Access to mental healthcare is not just a social or health issue, but a financial one.
But how do we actually make this happen? Firstly we need to get our elected representatives to pay attention by articulating why access to mental healthcare is not just a social or health issue, but a financial one. Find out where your local Member of Parliament or State Senator stands on these issues; if you can’t find anything they have said online, you can contact their electorate office directly. If you get an email back saying that it isn’t a priority for your local MP, make it one.
Despite mental health reform being on the agenda for a while now, it’s battled to gain traction. But that could change thanks to new Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt for whom mental health is a key issue. In short, now is the time to act.
If you have fallen through the gap, write to your local representative and explain your circumstances. Even if you are doing okay, write to them and politely share your concerns. Whatever their stance, elected representative’s jobs depend on your support so they need to know this is something you care about. If they do something positive, write their office and say thank you. If they don’t, keep pushing. Remember, it’s not a revolution if you can’t afford to join.
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Text Royce Kurmelovs