In Australia, states and the common wealth share the financing of health. While the state is responsible for hospitals, commonwealth is responsible for primary care and this has created a barrier for mental health services in integrating primary care into their services fully (Rosenberg & Hickie 2013). Majority of funding for mental health has been through the council of Australia government (COAG) national action plan on mental health 2006 to 2011(Rosenberg & Hickie 2013). Rosenberg & Hickie (2013) observed that mental health spending has increased by 4.8% which fail to keep up with health spending of 5.3%. In recent times, there has been cut in hospital funding from the government, resulting in a tight hospital budget. This has placed a hold on the expansion of services and in some cases has led to closure of bed spaces. My mental health services face excessive demand and bed shortage as a result of scarcity of fund allocated to mental health care which mean that choices of what to fund are inevitable (MY MHS Intranet….)..Problems with admission of patients to inpatient unit are increasingly becoming an issue in my mental health services. As a result of the shortage of beds, it is increasingly getting more and more difficult getting patients into the inpatient unit. 100% bed occupancy rate has put pressure on inpatient unit and resultantly, patients discharge occurs reactively in response to the need to …show more content…
The Victorian auditor General’s Office in 2002 was critical of standard or discharge planning in the mental health services in Victoria. This was as a result of the high level of readmission following discharge from these institutions. In my mental health services, a discharge plan in set in motion at the point of patient admission and worked through as patient care progresses. This amongst other things involves reviewing the discharge plan collaboratively with the client and their carer who for a good number of times happen to be a client’s relative. Part of the process is to educate the carer of the warning signs of relapse that sets off an alarm bell to contact the mental health service. Unfortunately, we are faced with the challenge of dealing with carers who has little knowledge about mental illness, experiencing mental illness themselves or have their own unrealistic expectation of client improvement, which often in some of the patients getting back to the mental health service in a bad state, ( Schulz & Sherwood 2008). Schulz & Sherwood (2008) described a carer as a person who life is affected by their close relationship with consumer who has a caring role with the consumer. The effect on carer burden with a relative affected by