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Young Victorians wait in hospital for acute mental health care beds
Wodonga teenager Katie Kendall says finding the mental health care she needed at just 16 was an extra blow to her already-fragile state.
The closest available acute adolescent mental health inpatient bed at Eastern Health's Box Hill Hospital was more than a three-hour drive away, and securing a bed was never guaranteed.
"There was a period where I was presenting every single night for about a month because I couldn't get beds in inpatient units, and that's what we were told to do, just keep presenting to the local hospital," she said.
Acute mental health inpatient beds provide a space with expert multi-disciplinary teams to support young people with acute mental health challenges.
Katie was admitted to the beds at Box Hill Hospital six times, and once into an Albury adult mental health unit when she was just 17 in a unisex space that "scared" her.
She said she was also once left up to five nights in an emergency department.
"Every time it's happened, I end up coming out worse," Ms Kendall said.
"Being trapped in that sort of room and needing to try to keep yourself safe when you're already not in a good place, you don't have anything to do, a lot of the time, my mental health just spiralled."
Ms Kendall, now 19, said she had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and chose to be treated privately.
Demand for youth mental health care is rapidly increasing, but acute adolescent mental health inpatient bed numbers are stagnating.
There are 58 acute adolescent mental health inpatient beds across Victoria that support young people, generally aged between 12 to 17 years of age, and more than two-thirds of them have been operating for more than 20 years.
Just four are in regional Victoria.
Each regional area feeds into designated metro-based health services, where the state's remaining acute adolescent mental health inpatient beds are split between Austin Health, Eastern Health, Monash Health and the Royal Children's Hospital.
Some metro services accommodate about 400 mental health inpatient referrals a year.
They accept referrals from other areas if they have availability.
Austin Health has received 329 referrals to its Adolescent Inpatient Psychiatry Unit over the past year.
It was able to accommodate 37 of 42 rural referrals.
Monash Children's Hospital Stepping Stones adolescent inpatient mental health unit accommodates mostly low dependency referrals and experiences peak seasonal challenges, but its intensive care area beds are nearly always full.
There has been a 50 per cent increase in mental health conditions among young people between 2007 and 2021, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Youth mental health experts say there is a huge gap in care for young people who have complex mental health issues that available community services can't treat.
Youth mental health advocacy group, Orygen, said many adolescents had to be very unwell before they qualified to access acute inpatient care.
"Their experience in going to an emergency department, not being able to be admitted because you're not unwell enough because that system is under so much stress, means that they are often then sent back or discharged back then into the community," Orygen's director of policy and engagement, Vivienne Browne, said.
"There's not the services there in the community that are able to respond to the complexity and the severity of their mental ill health.
The Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System recommended in 2019 a further 170 new youth and adult mental health beds.
A Victorian government spokesperson said that had been delivered and included 10 Youth Hospital in the Home beds around Melbourne.
In 2022, the Victorian government rolled out its Mental Health and Wellbeing Levy on businesses to help provide a stable and dedicated form of additional funding for the mental health system.
The levy raised $1.2 billion during the 2023-24 financial year, but the ABC was unable to obtain a breakdown from the government on how that money was spent.
"Every dollar raised by the Mental Health and Wellbeing Levy goes straight into the mental health system — as is required under Victorian legislation," a government spokesperson said.
"In response to the royal commission's recommendations, planning is also underway for a new statewide service framework for inpatient care for young people — this will be developed in partnership with young people, their families, carers and supporters.
