Patients needing psychiatric help at Werribee’s Mercy Hospital have had to wait for up to six days in the emergency department before getting a specialised bed, according to the Office of the Public Advocate.
A new report shows there were several reports of patients waiting for days, rather than the national benchmark of four hours, in Mercy’s emergency department in 2012-13.
At least one patient waited 160 hours, or six and a half days.
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Public Advocate manager John Chesterman said community visitors – volunteers appointed to care for the needs of mental health patients visiting hospitals – recently reported that there had been unacceptable admission delays at the Mercy.
“It is deeply concerning that Victorians in mental health crisis have waited for excessively long periods of time to receive mental health care,” Dr Chesterman said.
“While hospitals may not always be able to meet the national target of four hours, there can be no acceptable reason for waiting several days for mental health care.
“If a person’s mental ill health has reached a critical point where they are seeking help at a hospital, the stress, anxiety, uncertainty and desperation of a long wait in an emergency department could be detrimental.”
Dr Chesterman said problems at the Mercy were raised in a 2011-12 report that found mental health patients were waiting for beds for more than eight hours, or double the national benchmark.
“Long waiting times across the state reported in the community visitors annual report 2012-13 , reflect growing demand for mental health services in Victoria,” he said.
Mercy health services executive director Linda Mellors said recent state government funding of $34 million for a new building at the Werribee campus would provide 50 acute psychiatric beds and four psychiatric assessment and planning unit beds.
She said the existing 25 acute beds, four assessment beds and eight mother-and-child psychiatric beds ran at almost 100 per cent capacity. But the hospital had improved its transfer of patients from the emergency department to mental health facilities.
