Report Released About The Harm Done By The Victorian Mental Health System

[chibam]

I stumbled upon this article just now:
https://www.msn.com/en-au/health/other/calls-for-justice-after-damning-mental-health-report/ar-AA1cs...

Thought it might be an interesting read for others on here who might be interested in this sort of system scrutiny.

It seems as if this inquiry has addressed many of the significant lines of inquiry that were worryingly absent from the Royal Inquiry a few years back - particularly with regard toward the harms that have been inflicted by the system.

I don't know about the rest of you, but this is the first I've even heard of this inquiry, let alone the release of it's final report. So easy to miss the goings on in this realm of mental health system scrutiny, even if you think your paying attention.😥

TBH, I have a lot of thoughts and questions about this one, so rather then spiralling in to one of my trademark 10-page rambles, I think I'll leave the floor open to others at this point.

Edit: For anyone who is interested, here's a link to the report that the article is apparently referancing:
https://www.livedexperiencejustice.au/s/Not-Before-Time-State-Acknowledgement-of-Harm-2023-FINAL-REL...

[Historylover]

@chibam, this refers to the public system, doesn't it? So, the private system continues as before, unchecked, damaging outcomes unaccounted for, and complaints not taken seriously?

[chibam]

I'm not entirely sure, @Historylover . This response to the report:
https://www.vmiac.org.au/wp-content/uploads/PDF-NBT-response.pdf
mentions "...harm in mental health and associated systems.", so I'm assuming that it is probably fairly broad in scope.

I hope that the private system is being addressed. Most of the harm I experianced was done by the private system, if I understand the differance correctly (we had to pay for the sessions).

As I said, today is the first I'm hearing of this inquiry at all, so I'll have to do a bit of reading to catch up. And likely as not, I'll be lucky to understand 20% of what I actually read.

I suspect I'm about to horrendously exceed my daily reccommended intake of jargon.

[chibam]

@Historylover  Having read through much of the report last night, I really get the feeling that it's sort of all-encompassing. Public system, private system, traditional healthcare system, cops, and all the other satellite organizations and systems as well that hover around this realm. The report seems to be casting a spotlight over all of them.

It's emphasis does seem to be on the more sensational "horrors of the psych ward"-type harms. This is understandable, as many of those stories are truly horrifying and, lets be honest, the worst of those are the ones that the media are gonna latch on to and want to discuss the most. But I get the impression that there is still plenty of interest and regard for the stories of more invisable harm, such as yours and mine.

Mind you, I'm exempt anyway, since I'm not Victorian. I can only hope that a similar process might start sooner rather then later here in NSW.

I must say, I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of interest in this report on here. It seems to just be you and me in this thread. I guess there might be a level of burnout on here. People having become tired of complaining about the system's ills.

[Historylover]

I agree that there is a lot of burnout, @chibam. Things everywhere—in every aspect of life—are in a total mess as far as I'm concerned. No individual government or department can fix these problems, it has to be forced on the population at large by situations and circumstances that cannot be avoided. As it stands, there are only superficial band-aids being applied and sooner or later everything starts to mount up to the point where major surgery is needed. I think a critical point of reckoning is approaching. I hope so anyway.

[Neuroemergent]

Thanks for posting, I was not aware of the report..

[chibam]

No problem, @Neuroemergent .🙂

Things seem to have gone quiet regarding this report, so I don't know how much impact it's had.

Shortly after it's release there were news articles published that indicated that the VIC government weren't happy that this report had gone public. They didn't like it's content, so they had been hoping to suppress it, so the news articles implied. I suspect that, now that it's faded from the news cycle (and by extension, the general public's consciousness), the VIC government are hoping to sweep it under the rug and ignore it entirely.