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Fears for SW children’s mental health

Aaron Corlett, SOUTH WESTERN TIMESSouth Western Times
Fears for SW children’s mental health
Camera IconFears for SW children’s mental health Credit: South Western Times

A Bunbury paediatrician has revealed he has stopped referring a “great number” of his patients to a South West children’s mental health service because it is “under resourced”.

Dr Harvey Graham said he had reduced the number of children he referred to the South West Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in Bunbury and chose to refer them to other services.

“The staff at the service are fantastic but it’s under resourced and they can’t do their job without the proper resources, ” he said.

“For many years the South West Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service has not been able to offer the service as it should.

“The service can only take on the most severe patients so I’m grateful for services like Headspace, who I refer patients to.”

The service has not had a clinical psychologist for 16 months and the position of an occupational therapist has been vacant for more than five years.

A WA Country Health Service spokeswoman said there was a small pool of child and mental health service-trained specialists living in the South West and as a result there were vacancies from time-to-time.

“Mental and allied health services are provided in the South West by a range of health professionals and recruitment is under way to appoint a senior clinical psychologist to complement existing mental health services, ” she said.

Dr Graham said he had known staff members who had left the service because they were overworked.

“They have found the clinical workload too high and they have had trouble meeting the requirements, ” he said.

South West MLC Adele Farina said she believed the service had been “chronically under resourced for years.”

“The Minister (Helen Morton) has said they have experienced great difficulty recruiting for the vacant positions at South West Adolescent Mental Health, and this is hardly surprising when the service is so seriously under resourced, ” she said.

“One of the keys to successful mental health outcomes is early diagnosis and treatment, and children and adolescents are having their long-term prognosis jeopardised by a lack of resources in the South West.”

Ms Morton was contacted by the South Western Times but had not responded at the time of going to press.

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