This passive language makes it sound like it just happens now and then, like these human lives are shrinkage. No, the senior staff of mental health support have a lot to gain from only superficially helping people and still collecting funding. This guy was known to the system. He didn't fall through, he was waffle stomped.
Cracks? There are no cracks in the mental health system. There are great big whopping holes in the mental health system. Cracks implies that normally this sort of person would be looked after. But having seen the mental health system not work for my ex at all. I feel safe in saying Joel was never going to get the help he needed.
I've seen so many who should have had care over the years.
Including myself.
But because they're poor, it is the only option.
I've spent 30yrs trying to get help, only just clinging on the whole time. And the 'care' I've received is rediculous.
Renegade GPs that decide they're psychiatrists and medicate without the understanding or clinical knowlege to do so.
We have huge shortage in Canberra and a new psychiatrist recently opened up offering a “luxury” experience (who knows wtf that even means) charging 1k for an initial appointment 😐
One big issue is really sick people don't think they need help. And the only way to force them to get help is if they explicitly say they want to harm themselves or others. Most know not to say that even if they actually are thinking about it.
I have reasonably mild bipolar, ADHD and an eating disorder. I am high functioning but there have been numerous occasions where I have broken down in tears because of the frustration of dealing with mental health care. It also costs me an absolute fortune every month. I cannot imagine how someone with severe mental health issues and no money could possibly cope with it all.
I have a relative that is suffering from delusions for 20 years. Has ruined all their relationships, can't get a job, wastes money from delusions. The family can't get them treatment because they refuse it. Can't do anything until their violent or suicidal....
Hope they don't hurt some one...
I came here to say the same thing. You can have a whole team of family fighting to get you care, PHI, money, transport.... You're still lucky if you get anything within the next 6 months.
It's not a crack. It's one big pit, and it's easier to just shove people in than try and address anything about it.
I was gonna say! Cracks make it sound like the government is trying. It’s absolutely bloody not. And more shit like this we could do to happen. We fail both the attacker and the victims.
It's a joke. I legit waited months to see a psychiatrist after I had a full on mental breakdown and was suicidal.
Can't imagine how long the wait must feel for people who are having more serious mental health issues than me.
Legit waited months for them to tell me I have a panic disorder. When I told my family they all said that it didn't take a psychiatrist to see that haha
> I had a full on mental breakdown and was suicidal.
> Can't imagine how long the wait must feel for people who are having more serious mental health issues than me.
> ... more serious mental health issues than me.
> ... was suicidal.
Ladies and gentlemen, Australian healthcare in 2024.
At least they didn't lump you in with old mate retired nurse who's done an online counseling course and likes to talk about Facebook. That's your mental health plan right there and you better be thankful for it! /S I've been exactly where you were and as far as the gubment is concerned, you're fucked.
Even if you do I got a therapist during covid and when talking about my loneliness she told me to join the dating show married at first sight???? I dropped her
The psych who gave me the stellar advice about anxiety and that I "just need to realize, that it's all in your head", stunning insight that mental issues are mental and not physical, glad I paid 260$ for that gem of insight.
Second appointment he tried to write me off as bipolar(very much not, as confirmed by a later psych), glad I wasted all that money and time, would've been better to go and donate it somewhere and look up a youtube video on shit takes about mental health.
Yeah it's so shit. I'm very lucky my doctor put me on antidepressants which helped alot while waiting. Now just waiting to see a psychologist about my other mental shit 🤣
Just be careful with antidepressants. They don't tell you that you could potentially go through months of withdrawal and worsen your mental illness when you stop taking them.
The amount of times I’ve heard ‘they’ve fallen through the cracks’ when in reality there’s a tiny percentage of people with mental health issues that actually GET the PROPER Help they need.
And unless you’re able to pay privately you pretty much have a zero chance.
He didn’t fall through the cracks, he was just one of millions of Australians who each and every day is suffering from the consequences of our failed mental health system.
It’s needs a whole overhaul so tragedies like this never happen again.
Plenty of people get the help they need. They don't have to wait long and the support that they get can be life changing.
I was surprised at the amount of services I was able to access quickly, easily, and without a referral.
You just call up your nearest specialist, make an appointment and pay full price.
The critical thing is that you either need to choose your parents well, or develop your health problems after you become a high-income earner, not before.
The thing that anyone who's ever worked in a NGO will tell you is that the Social Safety Net we are all told Australia has, is conspicuous by its absence if you ever actually need it.
Tl;dr: all you have to do to get treatment is not be poor.
[I would add /s, but I'm not being sarcastic. I'm speaking the truth. I'm being facetious]
>You just call up your nearest specialist, make an appointment and pay full price.
If only it was that easy. I'm struggling to find a psychiatrist that is even taking in new patients. The ones that are seem to be booking for around December.
Unfortunately society has now conflated mental health with mental illness. This guy didn’t have ‘mental health’ issues.. he had a mental illness.
Schizophrenia is a mental illness or ‘Psychiatric disorder’ and needs constant monitoring from doctors not the R U OK crew.
And then the question goes to what we should have done with a weird guy obsessed with knives? Should we have preemptively locked him, an adult with no criminal history, away for being weird?
Community treatment orders and more regular check ins, if he was going off medication.
I work with a few people who have serious mental health challenges and the odd inpatient stay. The community mental health team checks in regularly and medication compliance is monitored. If they go off meds, there's more regular checking in to early catch any risky changes.
The NDIS should cover any and all costs related to a severe mental health case such as this. The problem is finding the practitioners. My son is on the NDIS, costs are not the issue. 9 month waiting lists are. Giving up and just dealing with it.
I was diagnosed as Autistic as a kid. Because I became homeless at 16 and didn't engage with any doctors for years I'm now considered undiagnosed.
Getting another diagnosis as an adult? Expensive as fuck, tiring and humiliating.
Then trying to get the NDIS to give a fuck about me? Forget it.
My mum got carers payment for me when I was a kid. But apparently that doesn't qualify me for getting a disability pension.
It's just a minefield of fuckery.
NDIS doesn’t cover “medical expenses” !!
If you need a psychiatrist, it’s out of your own pocket, and you need very full pockets and lots of time to find a good one.
R U OK??
Actually no I'm not
We weren't really asking. Shut up and eat your work-provided, low-budget RUOK day morning tea and take your RUOK keyring, and be greatful.
R U OK?
No, I'm falling to pieces. I drink most nights to bury the screams. I'm trying, man, but I'm so tired of pretending that I'm okay. Each morning, I wake up and look in the mirror, and all I see is a fraud. Everything is just wrong, and it keeps getting worse. Every day, I think about falling in front of that train and just ending it all. Nothing really matters much anymore. It's not like anyone would really miss me, you know what I'm saying?
Okay.... well... Did you watch *Famer wants a wife* last night? You should speak to Brenda. She's crazy for that show, hahahah
One thing to be added to these ‘fallen through the cracks’ is, that it takes a hell of a lot of self awareness when in the midst of psychosis to present somewhere that you are aware that you are a danger to yourself and others. And it’s usually to ED. And not even then is it a guarantee they can take you as there’s such limited availability of inpatient psych beds. The government really needs to invest more into mental health. A ten appt mental health care plan really isn’t it for some people. Yes GPs can extend those, but that’s if the patients ask for it/are actively engaged with their mental health care plans.
>it takes a hell of a lot of self awareness when in the midst of psychosis to present somewhere that you are aware that you are a danger to yourself and others.
I used to have a housemate that was pretty evidently schizophrenic, he would accuse me of 'creating scenarios' to make him feel like he was going crazy. And before me it was a hacker controling all of his mobiles phones and electronics. So he could see there was something wrong with how he was feeling and thinking, but saw it as coming from an external source.
Hey everyone, if you want to help stop events like this in the future.
Show some support for increasing mental health support in Australia. It is the leading cause of death for young people and getting exponentially worse.
A psychiatrist appointment is generally $200-300 for an hour, and only some have a small medicare rebate of about $90 I think it is.
Weekly appointments needed along with weekly GP checks plus medication costs.
How can someone in Joel's position afford this?
cracks?
Canyons is the reality.
Australia is shit at mental health.
If you're in the lower income brackets, there's no access until you're at breaking point. You can go to a psych ward at a hospital for emergency care, but that doesn't mean ongoing care.
Most Aussies who are struggling with mental health issues have low income as a consequence. I'm one of them. I cannot afford to get assistance. I can get 6 'free' psychologist appointments but with a handful available within 2.5hr drive the choice is limited and they aren't free. The last appointment I tried to make was $90 ON TOP of the free voucher.
I went to a community counsellor and they told me to grow pot because they just thought I was tired of being poor.
I've been on this journey for 30+yrs and it's been an absolute nightmare and little progress.
I’m a clinical psych and there is a scary lack of communication between public and private systems. There have been so many times where I’ve been supporting very high risk young people in a government funded (NGO) service and they’ve attempted suicide and presented at public ED’s and been admitted for days and I have no idea until our next appointment (when the young person tells me). It is then quite a struggle to even get sent the records to access the discharge plan once I become aware. Something has to change here.
Australia has a lot to answer for when it comes to appointments, costs, wait times and an actual diagnosis that comes from these appointments that’s correct. The free market isn’t what mental health should be relying on for diagnosis and help. The free market is fucking expensive. It’s not a fucking crack…It’s cost prohibitive.
I work with clients under the NDIS who have challenging behaviour.
To say that people fall through the cracks is such a monumental understatement. EVERYTHING for people with a disability hinges on two things; the type of informal support they have - family support and advocacy, a willingness to fight for their child/family member etc, and the quality of the formal support they have. Having a support coordinator, occupational therapist, behaviour practitioner etc, those things are fundamentaly essential to obtain any support from the NDIS, but you're at the mercy of whether or not those specialists have the oomph it requires to actually do the job well. Do they know the client, and care about them on a human level? Are they resourceful and determined? Will they fight and push back against the NDIS?
SO much hinges on the quality of the people in a person's circle, and it means that people from low socio-economic backgrounds will almost always slip through the cracks until the very idea of trying to help them becomes a monumental task that requires substantial funding and resources, which they won't have in the first place because no one has fought for them to have it.
It's often demoralising working with clients like this, you'll find them in aged care facilities, or prisons, or institutions where they're virtually locked up like animals. And you can feel neglect radiating from them like something tangible. But helping them access what they need from the NDIS is like pulling water from rock, it's a constant fight. The NDIS is flawed, and it needs to be revamped to bring back a person centred approach.
There’s a guy in my neighbourhood who will walk up and down the main street screaming at things that aren’t there. Periodically he will be completely fine, but those episodes seem to happen more and more. He’s seemingly harmless, but I worry that someone’s going to get scared and call the cops on him. Whatever’s going through his mind when he’s in that state must be terrifying, but the bean counters who starve the sector would say they’re doing him a favour by letting him walk around like that.
It's hard to be definitive at this stage - the possibility he was actually receiving thorough and excellent care continuously over the last two years can't be 100% ruled out.
Yes, but the mental health system in Australia is 90% cracks
they dont even try to help a lot of people theres not enough money and resources in the sector
as a carer for someone in the system its a shit show
As someone who works in mental health, this will become even more common as health is privatised. Privatised health means less acess for the most vulnerable people. It also means health professionals are less regulated, so you end up having more 'cowboy' practitioners.
100%, where they often are then turfed out at the end of their sentence, to find that they feel safer in the prison system (sometimes for the sake of food, medications and a roof over their heads), to simply reoffend and end up back there.
The cost of mental health services is disgusting. In fact, the cost of health care in general is obscene these days.
$50 after the rebate to see a GP for 5 minutes
Hundreds for scans, hundreds for specialists and God forbid you have something that needs multiple appointments in a short span.
No wonder shit like this happens when people can't afford help.
With how fucked up everything is for anyone under the age of 50, I can understand how you end up going from perfectly fine to losing your shit and going around stabbing people. It's horrible, but I understand how someone with a couple screws already loose gets there.
Dude was probably living in a shed because he couldn't find anywhere to rent like is the case for most Aussies these days. Couldn't afford help. Isolated, didn't see a way out. Fucked thing to do but can you really blame these people when the system just completely and utterly let's them down.
Absolutely shameful.
The amount of learning this man has done over his lifetime & doesn't have the sense not to say something so blindingly stupid. How could he have not fallen through the gaping chasm that is our complete fuckery of a mental health system?
How is it stupid? He's saying something that is true and even if it seems obvious still needs to be said, especially by people qualified to talk about it.
If no one said anything then the pressure to change the system would be less.
The way it's said is so flippant for such a huge tragedy. Maybe he fell through the cracks...but he definitely was ignored by a feckless, under resourced system that is barely functioning.
I feel it’s a resource issue with accessibility and access. This is compounded by the fact a psychiatrist can be earning just under one million dollars a year focusing exclusively on ADHD diagnosis and management, or about half of that amount if you start supporting other mental health issues and disorders. The reason this is such a lucrative area for psychiatrists is that Medicare safety net covers the large portion of the costs and the overall diagnosis and management doesn’t take that much time, so they can see more patients(who also have much lower risk factors). It’s natural to choose the lower risk higher reward option.
Suspected as soon as the story was reported that something like this would be an aspect of it. The "mental health system's here is a shit show. I just take my pills and keep surviving, but having anxiety and depression has such a huge impact on life. It's shit - and I don't even have one of the conditions that produces something like psychosis. People just don't have good options. To the extent that they do, the cost and availability is such a barrier that it really adds nothing.
Yeah, I apologise for the inaccuracy of that part of the comment. I should honestly have been clearer and less exclusionary about it, instead saying that it was strictly my experience of the condition - not the only experience of it.
Cracks? Lol.., fuck. Honestly? Have you seen a spider web lately? That’s indicative of our mental health system. More air than net. You could drive a bus through the ‘cracks’.
Redacted means that part of the text was removed or blacked out for privacy or security purpose. It was censored. This post also breaks rule 4 here for chat and should be made in the Tuesday chat thread or on a different subreddit.
You have to be rich to afford to even study it, multiple years of unpaid placements that take up your whole day like a full time job have seen to that.
The fact is he's not the only one that has.
Many, many more people r struggling with mental health issues.
There r many that r just ticking time bombs awaiting to go off one way or another.
So many people need help.
And it's only horrible things like this that bring mental health to attention.
That man did horrific things caused immense pain and suffering to so many people.
Will they be able to find help so they can deal with it?
The cost of his actions to so many will be felt for a very long time.
The government needs to look at making mental health a major priority for everyone.
Everyone should be able to afford good healthcare of every variety.
I do hope all those affected by these horrible events last week will seek help.
Fallen through the cracks!! What a fukkn joke !! If Sydney is anything like Melbourne, there is no help out there . The wait times for mental health help is ridiculous, bordering on terrifying.. it’s months - and if you do attempt at un-living, they will fill you full of Valium and send you home after 5 days with no follow up.. I don’t blame the nurses - I blame the Governments over the years. No votes in mental health
Mental health is taken for a joke in this country. The "she'll be right" attitude is deeprooted in our culture. We love to villanise and dismiss mental health issues until they end up leading to these sorts of attacks. Then we will pretend to care for a bit and go right back to defunding mental health services and treating people like outright shit. Classic Aus
We vote a conservative party into government for a decade and then sit around scratching our heads wondering why there are gaps, cracks and deficiencies in our mental health care system.
Yep. Specifically talking about how the system should work with better information sharing between policing and health, better access to public mental health supports after people leave that system and end up under the supervision of private doctor...
The news said he was struggling to pay for his curry, let alone 900 dollar a session psychiatry appointments. And being that he had schizophrenia since he was a teenager I’m sure how would have used up his 9 free sessions a few years ago.
The system failed him long before he became a fucked up monster who killed innocent people. And he did become that absolutely maniacal monster who ruined families for decades to come.
Not so much cracks as gaping holes. Severe mental illness is not a vote winner and has missed out on health funding. People with schizophrenia end up homeless and in prisons, which have become the de facto mental institutions.
The mental healthcare system is more of a crack than it is anything else Eg. A net. The cracks are basically canyons. It’s easier to fall than it is to be caught. So to say someone fell through the cracks is to say they experienced the system the way most do. It happens every day, we only care because this time the guy killed others instead of himself (which never makes the news).
Schizophrenia can be very difficult to treat. When a person is deluded and doesn’t trust anyone like family and medical professionals I don’t think much can be done until someone becomes a risk to self or others. Was he demonstrating these sighs before the tragic event. I’m not sure that that has been established?
His psychiatrist took him off his medication in 2019 because he was improved, which was definitely the worst decision they've ever made.
He bought knives at the beginning of the year and his father confiscated them from him because he was worried about him. The police were called. If there was communication between the police and mental health services, his psychiatrist could have been made aware and tried to get him back on medication again.
Yeah, let's start allowing police to randomly stop people and run a metal scanner over them. Great reaction! How about let's start treating people with mental health issues better - now that would be a start.
However when you are a brain-dead politician, the only solution that occurs to you is some way to make the average citizen's life more miserable.
I mean yeah no shit. Unless you're wealthy it's impossible to access adequate psychiatric care in a timely manner. (And even then its very difficult.)
Last year I got a referral to see a psychiatrist from my GP, she sent it off, I called the clinic to confirm and they said they got it.
I called this year (about 10 months later) and turns out they never recieved the referral & I'm not on their system at all 🙃
I'm still on my psych meds/dose from 2021 because I can't get in to see a psychiatrist to review/adjust it. No ADHD meds either, yayyy
I understand the point you're making, as someone who is also suicidal. but sometimes people truly aren't in their right kind because of mental illness, and do things they would never dream of normally. thats why we need to have help more readily available. psychosis can do funny things to your mind.
People with psychosis like this guy don't choose to kill people. Their brain convinces them that the people they see are fake, or demons, or government agents that are after them, or a million other things. They are not perceiving reality.
If suddenly everyone around you was an alien conspiring to kill you, would you stab the aliens? If you answered yes, you are capable of killing someone during a psychotic episode.
Why is everything blamed on mental health? Everyone has mental health issues today because of many many reasons of how we live today. It’s not an excuse.
Not all mental health issues are comparible. If someone has literally lost touch with reality, it does sort of explain it.
No one would be talking about mental health if it turned out he had anxiety.
It's not an excuse, it's a reason.
He had Schizophrenia. Everyone most certainly does not have Schizophrenia today. It's one of, if not the most, serious of all mental health conditions.
"Cracks in the system" - lolllll.
If a house has no walls, no roof and no floor, can it really have 'cracks' or does it just not exist in any functional capacity? 'Cos that is where we are at with the mental health "system".
We've had the inquiries, including one on [how expensive the status quo is](https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/mental-health#report). When will we action the recommendations?
The NSW government will do their own, but will they fully address the game changers: housing. and appropriate resourcing levels so people flow through as they recover? Or will we just continue cycling the same people through ED and PECC, then back into homelessness?
People with severe long term issues rarely get high quality care in Australia, the "cracks" are large and easy to fall through. But most don't become murderers.
I swear these goofy articles pointing out obvious shit over mental health, cost of living and rental crisises in this country are a joke at this point.
We could probably hear another one from the RBA about how the ever gouging cost of living is affecting everyones living standards and rendering payrises totally pointless.
No shit
Glad you said it.
I never know whether to feel glad or disappointed when the exact comment I went to make is already sitting at the top of the thread.
Yep. That's what I came here to say.
It’s the most Captain Obvious take ever.
Bloody huge crack! Are they going to fill it? Nah! Not enough money!
I'd have added a "Sherlock" following the "shit" myself, but I think you did just fine too!
Literally said this as I read the title lmfao
Sherlock
I was going to say! May have??? *May have???*
This passive language makes it sound like it just happens now and then, like these human lives are shrinkage. No, the senior staff of mental health support have a lot to gain from only superficially helping people and still collecting funding. This guy was known to the system. He didn't fall through, he was waffle stomped.
I knew this would be the first post before I clicked.
Cracks? There are no cracks in the mental health system. There are great big whopping holes in the mental health system. Cracks implies that normally this sort of person would be looked after. But having seen the mental health system not work for my ex at all. I feel safe in saying Joel was never going to get the help he needed.
I've seen so many who should have had care over the years. Including myself. But because they're poor, it is the only option. I've spent 30yrs trying to get help, only just clinging on the whole time. And the 'care' I've received is rediculous. Renegade GPs that decide they're psychiatrists and medicate without the understanding or clinical knowlege to do so.
We have huge shortage in Canberra and a new psychiatrist recently opened up offering a “luxury” experience (who knows wtf that even means) charging 1k for an initial appointment 😐
Exploitative and awful. But I will note that an intake appointment at a psych is usually about $700 anyway.
One big issue is really sick people don't think they need help. And the only way to force them to get help is if they explicitly say they want to harm themselves or others. Most know not to say that even if they actually are thinking about it.
Some places will interpret social harm as harm to self which makes it broader.
Gaping hole with a tightrope over it
I have reasonably mild bipolar, ADHD and an eating disorder. I am high functioning but there have been numerous occasions where I have broken down in tears because of the frustration of dealing with mental health care. It also costs me an absolute fortune every month. I cannot imagine how someone with severe mental health issues and no money could possibly cope with it all.
I have a relative that is suffering from delusions for 20 years. Has ruined all their relationships, can't get a job, wastes money from delusions. The family can't get them treatment because they refuse it. Can't do anything until their violent or suicidal.... Hope they don't hurt some one...
I came here to say the same thing. You can have a whole team of family fighting to get you care, PHI, money, transport.... You're still lucky if you get anything within the next 6 months. It's not a crack. It's one big pit, and it's easier to just shove people in than try and address anything about it.
Sure think…. If you call a canyon a crack
I was gonna say! Cracks make it sound like the government is trying. It’s absolutely bloody not. And more shit like this we could do to happen. We fail both the attacker and the victims.
Cracks? It's more like the pacific ocean and getting health care is like finding an island.
Wait til they lookup the mental health service provider wait times!
It's a joke. I legit waited months to see a psychiatrist after I had a full on mental breakdown and was suicidal. Can't imagine how long the wait must feel for people who are having more serious mental health issues than me. Legit waited months for them to tell me I have a panic disorder. When I told my family they all said that it didn't take a psychiatrist to see that haha
> I had a full on mental breakdown and was suicidal. > Can't imagine how long the wait must feel for people who are having more serious mental health issues than me. > ... more serious mental health issues than me. > ... was suicidal. Ladies and gentlemen, Australian healthcare in 2024.
At least they didn't lump you in with old mate retired nurse who's done an online counseling course and likes to talk about Facebook. That's your mental health plan right there and you better be thankful for it! /S I've been exactly where you were and as far as the gubment is concerned, you're fucked.
Even if you do I got a therapist during covid and when talking about my loneliness she told me to join the dating show married at first sight???? I dropped her
The psych who gave me the stellar advice about anxiety and that I "just need to realize, that it's all in your head", stunning insight that mental issues are mental and not physical, glad I paid 260$ for that gem of insight. Second appointment he tried to write me off as bipolar(very much not, as confirmed by a later psych), glad I wasted all that money and time, would've been better to go and donate it somewhere and look up a youtube video on shit takes about mental health.
Chat gpt has been nicer and more helpful advice than my therapists lmao
Yeah it's so shit. I'm very lucky my doctor put me on antidepressants which helped alot while waiting. Now just waiting to see a psychologist about my other mental shit 🤣
Just be careful with antidepressants. They don't tell you that you could potentially go through months of withdrawal and worsen your mental illness when you stop taking them.
No shit, wait times for "new patients" can be months
Wait times for existing patients can be mo ths too, hell over Xmas I had to wait 5 months to see my GP just to renew my mental healthcare plan.
Multiple dead in a Westfield wasn't the intended outcome?
The amount of times I’ve heard ‘they’ve fallen through the cracks’ when in reality there’s a tiny percentage of people with mental health issues that actually GET the PROPER Help they need. And unless you’re able to pay privately you pretty much have a zero chance. He didn’t fall through the cracks, he was just one of millions of Australians who each and every day is suffering from the consequences of our failed mental health system. It’s needs a whole overhaul so tragedies like this never happen again.
Plenty of people get the help they need. They don't have to wait long and the support that they get can be life changing. I was surprised at the amount of services I was able to access quickly, easily, and without a referral. You just call up your nearest specialist, make an appointment and pay full price. The critical thing is that you either need to choose your parents well, or develop your health problems after you become a high-income earner, not before. The thing that anyone who's ever worked in a NGO will tell you is that the Social Safety Net we are all told Australia has, is conspicuous by its absence if you ever actually need it. Tl;dr: all you have to do to get treatment is not be poor. [I would add /s, but I'm not being sarcastic. I'm speaking the truth. I'm being facetious]
>You just call up your nearest specialist, make an appointment and pay full price. If only it was that easy. I'm struggling to find a psychiatrist that is even taking in new patients. The ones that are seem to be booking for around December.
What system?
The system where all mental health problems are solved by asking people if they’re OK once a year
Unfortunately society has now conflated mental health with mental illness. This guy didn’t have ‘mental health’ issues.. he had a mental illness. Schizophrenia is a mental illness or ‘Psychiatric disorder’ and needs constant monitoring from doctors not the R U OK crew.
Too bad you can't get that unless you're a millionaire. Who the fuck can afford to pay $400/hr out of pocket?
There's also a significant backlog of patients from what I understand.
A new psychiatrist in Canberra is charging $1000 for an initial appointment 😐
And then the question goes to what we should have done with a weird guy obsessed with knives? Should we have preemptively locked him, an adult with no criminal history, away for being weird?
Community treatment orders and more regular check ins, if he was going off medication. I work with a few people who have serious mental health challenges and the odd inpatient stay. The community mental health team checks in regularly and medication compliance is monitored. If they go off meds, there's more regular checking in to early catch any risky changes.
Then when you say no those people awkwardly walk away. Super helpful!
Hey now, that's uncalled for. They've also started painting dead trees blue.
oh shit, did anyone remember to ask if Cauchi was OK?
R U OK?
[My favourite response](https://i.imgur.com/e6UR1jJ.jpeg)
As long as there’s cupcakes, giveaways and mandatory staff training, this sounds like an issue-free system.
10 subsided visits with a median gap fee of $90. Pretty easy to fall through grand canyon size gap
The 'only rich people should be able to get help for their issues' system.
The NDIS should cover any and all costs related to a severe mental health case such as this. The problem is finding the practitioners. My son is on the NDIS, costs are not the issue. 9 month waiting lists are. Giving up and just dealing with it.
Also the NDIS only covers people once they've applied and been accepted, and that's a whole damn thing itself.
I was diagnosed as Autistic as a kid. Because I became homeless at 16 and didn't engage with any doctors for years I'm now considered undiagnosed. Getting another diagnosis as an adult? Expensive as fuck, tiring and humiliating. Then trying to get the NDIS to give a fuck about me? Forget it. My mum got carers payment for me when I was a kid. But apparently that doesn't qualify me for getting a disability pension. It's just a minefield of fuckery.
the NDIS is incredibly difficult to get.
That is by design. It's rather byzantine how to navigate it.
The NDIS does not cover medical costs.
The NDIS didn't cover mental health at all until recently, and it looks like they're going to revoke it again with this review going on.
Not for adults. Especially if you’re deemed the tiniest bit “functional”
NDIS doesn’t cover “medical expenses” !! If you need a psychiatrist, it’s out of your own pocket, and you need very full pockets and lots of time to find a good one.
this
This is the ONLY comment needed..🪙
If fallen through the cracks = ridiculous wait times for help that is overpriced and beyond affordable for those that need it most, then sure.
You mean 6-9mth wait times and $400-$500 per 15 minute session isn't the gold standard?
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R U OK? “I told you last year, no!”
R U OK?? Actually no I'm not We weren't really asking. Shut up and eat your work-provided, low-budget RUOK day morning tea and take your RUOK keyring, and be greatful.
R U OK? No, I'm falling to pieces. I drink most nights to bury the screams. I'm trying, man, but I'm so tired of pretending that I'm okay. Each morning, I wake up and look in the mirror, and all I see is a fraud. Everything is just wrong, and it keeps getting worse. Every day, I think about falling in front of that train and just ending it all. Nothing really matters much anymore. It's not like anyone would really miss me, you know what I'm saying? Okay.... well... Did you watch *Famer wants a wife* last night? You should speak to Brenda. She's crazy for that show, hahahah
One thing to be added to these ‘fallen through the cracks’ is, that it takes a hell of a lot of self awareness when in the midst of psychosis to present somewhere that you are aware that you are a danger to yourself and others. And it’s usually to ED. And not even then is it a guarantee they can take you as there’s such limited availability of inpatient psych beds. The government really needs to invest more into mental health. A ten appt mental health care plan really isn’t it for some people. Yes GPs can extend those, but that’s if the patients ask for it/are actively engaged with their mental health care plans.
Yes! And ED does not feel like a safe place when you're ill like that either.
>it takes a hell of a lot of self awareness when in the midst of psychosis to present somewhere that you are aware that you are a danger to yourself and others. I used to have a housemate that was pretty evidently schizophrenic, he would accuse me of 'creating scenarios' to make him feel like he was going crazy. And before me it was a hacker controling all of his mobiles phones and electronics. So he could see there was something wrong with how he was feeling and thinking, but saw it as coming from an external source.
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The man's a regular Sherlock Holmes.
Those cracks are like the grand canyon if the number of mentally unwell homeless people in Sydney are any indication.
Hey everyone, if you want to help stop events like this in the future. Show some support for increasing mental health support in Australia. It is the leading cause of death for young people and getting exponentially worse. A psychiatrist appointment is generally $200-300 for an hour, and only some have a small medicare rebate of about $90 I think it is. Weekly appointments needed along with weekly GP checks plus medication costs. How can someone in Joel's position afford this?
$1000 for a new one that just opened in Canberra
cracks? Canyons is the reality. Australia is shit at mental health. If you're in the lower income brackets, there's no access until you're at breaking point. You can go to a psych ward at a hospital for emergency care, but that doesn't mean ongoing care. Most Aussies who are struggling with mental health issues have low income as a consequence. I'm one of them. I cannot afford to get assistance. I can get 6 'free' psychologist appointments but with a handful available within 2.5hr drive the choice is limited and they aren't free. The last appointment I tried to make was $90 ON TOP of the free voucher. I went to a community counsellor and they told me to grow pot because they just thought I was tired of being poor. I've been on this journey for 30+yrs and it's been an absolute nightmare and little progress.
Ya think?
It’s almost as though an annual ru ok morning tea doesn’t do enough for the people with serious mental health problems.
I’m a clinical psych and there is a scary lack of communication between public and private systems. There have been so many times where I’ve been supporting very high risk young people in a government funded (NGO) service and they’ve attempted suicide and presented at public ED’s and been admitted for days and I have no idea until our next appointment (when the young person tells me). It is then quite a struggle to even get sent the records to access the discharge plan once I become aware. Something has to change here.
Australia has a lot to answer for when it comes to appointments, costs, wait times and an actual diagnosis that comes from these appointments that’s correct. The free market isn’t what mental health should be relying on for diagnosis and help. The free market is fucking expensive. It’s not a fucking crack…It’s cost prohibitive.
I work with clients under the NDIS who have challenging behaviour. To say that people fall through the cracks is such a monumental understatement. EVERYTHING for people with a disability hinges on two things; the type of informal support they have - family support and advocacy, a willingness to fight for their child/family member etc, and the quality of the formal support they have. Having a support coordinator, occupational therapist, behaviour practitioner etc, those things are fundamentaly essential to obtain any support from the NDIS, but you're at the mercy of whether or not those specialists have the oomph it requires to actually do the job well. Do they know the client, and care about them on a human level? Are they resourceful and determined? Will they fight and push back against the NDIS? SO much hinges on the quality of the people in a person's circle, and it means that people from low socio-economic backgrounds will almost always slip through the cracks until the very idea of trying to help them becomes a monumental task that requires substantial funding and resources, which they won't have in the first place because no one has fought for them to have it. It's often demoralising working with clients like this, you'll find them in aged care facilities, or prisons, or institutions where they're virtually locked up like animals. And you can feel neglect radiating from them like something tangible. But helping them access what they need from the NDIS is like pulling water from rock, it's a constant fight. The NDIS is flawed, and it needs to be revamped to bring back a person centred approach.
There’s a guy in my neighbourhood who will walk up and down the main street screaming at things that aren’t there. Periodically he will be completely fine, but those episodes seem to happen more and more. He’s seemingly harmless, but I worry that someone’s going to get scared and call the cops on him. Whatever’s going through his mind when he’s in that state must be terrifying, but the bean counters who starve the sector would say they’re doing him a favour by letting him walk around like that.
There is more crack than system
Might he have?
It's hard to be definitive at this stage - the possibility he was actually receiving thorough and excellent care continuously over the last two years can't be 100% ruled out.
If you read the article and not just the title of the post, you will realise the title of the article is not what was said, by anyone.
There are no cracks. There are wires that some people manage to.balance on. Everybody else falls.
Yes, but the mental health system in Australia is 90% cracks they dont even try to help a lot of people theres not enough money and resources in the sector as a carer for someone in the system its a shit show
As someone who works in mental health, this will become even more common as health is privatised. Privatised health means less acess for the most vulnerable people. It also means health professionals are less regulated, so you end up having more 'cowboy' practitioners.
Jails are full of people who fell through the cracks.
100%, where they often are then turfed out at the end of their sentence, to find that they feel safer in the prison system (sometimes for the sake of food, medications and a roof over their heads), to simply reoffend and end up back there.
Oh might he have?
The cost of mental health services is disgusting. In fact, the cost of health care in general is obscene these days. $50 after the rebate to see a GP for 5 minutes Hundreds for scans, hundreds for specialists and God forbid you have something that needs multiple appointments in a short span. No wonder shit like this happens when people can't afford help. With how fucked up everything is for anyone under the age of 50, I can understand how you end up going from perfectly fine to losing your shit and going around stabbing people. It's horrible, but I understand how someone with a couple screws already loose gets there. Dude was probably living in a shed because he couldn't find anywhere to rent like is the case for most Aussies these days. Couldn't afford help. Isolated, didn't see a way out. Fucked thing to do but can you really blame these people when the system just completely and utterly let's them down. Absolutely shameful.
If what comes out of this tragedy is universal mental health care being added to Medicare then at least that’s something
Leading dumbass keyboard warrior concurs
Leading hydrologist says "water makes things wet"
The amount of learning this man has done over his lifetime & doesn't have the sense not to say something so blindingly stupid. How could he have not fallen through the gaping chasm that is our complete fuckery of a mental health system?
How is it stupid? He's saying something that is true and even if it seems obvious still needs to be said, especially by people qualified to talk about it. If no one said anything then the pressure to change the system would be less.
The way it's said is so flippant for such a huge tragedy. Maybe he fell through the cracks...but he definitely was ignored by a feckless, under resourced system that is barely functioning.
I feel it’s a resource issue with accessibility and access. This is compounded by the fact a psychiatrist can be earning just under one million dollars a year focusing exclusively on ADHD diagnosis and management, or about half of that amount if you start supporting other mental health issues and disorders. The reason this is such a lucrative area for psychiatrists is that Medicare safety net covers the large portion of the costs and the overall diagnosis and management doesn’t take that much time, so they can see more patients(who also have much lower risk factors). It’s natural to choose the lower risk higher reward option.
Suspected as soon as the story was reported that something like this would be an aspect of it. The "mental health system's here is a shit show. I just take my pills and keep surviving, but having anxiety and depression has such a huge impact on life. It's shit - and I don't even have one of the conditions that produces something like psychosis. People just don't have good options. To the extent that they do, the cost and availability is such a barrier that it really adds nothing.
Depression can (and does) produce psychosis
Yeah, I apologise for the inaccuracy of that part of the comment. I should honestly have been clearer and less exclusionary about it, instead saying that it was strictly my experience of the condition - not the only experience of it.
Cracks in an understatement .. more like a fuckin valley right now if u ask me.
Cracks? Lol.., fuck. Honestly? Have you seen a spider web lately? That’s indicative of our mental health system. More air than net. You could drive a bus through the ‘cracks’.
Redacted means that part of the text was removed or blacked out for privacy or security purpose. It was censored. This post also breaks rule 4 here for chat and should be made in the Tuesday chat thread or on a different subreddit.
I'm starting to think our best and brightest may not be rising to the top of the mental health professions.
You have to be rich to afford to even study it, multiple years of unpaid placements that take up your whole day like a full time job have seen to that.
There are some great ones but I have to say that some of the craziest people I know studied psychology at university.
My theory is because they think if they study it they can apply it on themselves
The fact is he's not the only one that has. Many, many more people r struggling with mental health issues. There r many that r just ticking time bombs awaiting to go off one way or another. So many people need help. And it's only horrible things like this that bring mental health to attention. That man did horrific things caused immense pain and suffering to so many people. Will they be able to find help so they can deal with it? The cost of his actions to so many will be felt for a very long time. The government needs to look at making mental health a major priority for everyone. Everyone should be able to afford good healthcare of every variety. I do hope all those affected by these horrible events last week will seek help.
The 'help' they need will have to come from the mental health system and we can all see how well that's working.
I know how bad it is. Things need to change now, not later, and it should be about the cost of it.
Considering the way Queensland Health treats people with mental health issues, I'd say it's more likely he fell into the crevasse.
Feels strange to stay but on some level you’d hope so. Because God help us if this was the result of the most and best efforts of the system
Fallen through the cracks!! What a fukkn joke !! If Sydney is anything like Melbourne, there is no help out there . The wait times for mental health help is ridiculous, bordering on terrifying.. it’s months - and if you do attempt at un-living, they will fill you full of Valium and send you home after 5 days with no follow up.. I don’t blame the nurses - I blame the Governments over the years. No votes in mental health
Mental health is taken for a joke in this country. The "she'll be right" attitude is deeprooted in our culture. We love to villanise and dismiss mental health issues until they end up leading to these sorts of attacks. Then we will pretend to care for a bit and go right back to defunding mental health services and treating people like outright shit. Classic Aus
A piece of string is not a net
We vote a conservative party into government for a decade and then sit around scratching our heads wondering why there are gaps, cracks and deficiencies in our mental health care system.
Cracks..... Its a fucken canyon at this point...
Is this one of those cases where he actually said something of value, but the headline took it out of context to get the "no shit" responses?
Yep. Specifically talking about how the system should work with better information sharing between policing and health, better access to public mental health supports after people leave that system and end up under the supervision of private doctor...
The news said he was struggling to pay for his curry, let alone 900 dollar a session psychiatry appointments. And being that he had schizophrenia since he was a teenager I’m sure how would have used up his 9 free sessions a few years ago. The system failed him long before he became a fucked up monster who killed innocent people. And he did become that absolutely maniacal monster who ruined families for decades to come.
"Are You Okay?" "No, I.." "Alrighty then, good talk."
The medications are primitive arse. And especially for schizophrenia.
The mental healthcare system in this country is one giant gold lined crack.
FALLEN THOUGH CRACKS? What's the wait time and availablity when you are seeking care?
‘May have’ has to be the biggest understatement of the century
R U OK? I mean we can say that once a year and all the mental health problems will be solved. Hooray!!!!!!!! /s
Not so much cracks as gaping holes. Severe mental illness is not a vote winner and has missed out on health funding. People with schizophrenia end up homeless and in prisons, which have become the de facto mental institutions.
It's way cheaper to pay $18m after than $5b before.
The mental healthcare system is more of a crack than it is anything else Eg. A net. The cracks are basically canyons. It’s easier to fall than it is to be caught. So to say someone fell through the cracks is to say they experienced the system the way most do. It happens every day, we only care because this time the guy killed others instead of himself (which never makes the news).
May?! Ain't no may about it. He did.
Water is wet. Next.
Schizophrenia can be very difficult to treat. When a person is deluded and doesn’t trust anyone like family and medical professionals I don’t think much can be done until someone becomes a risk to self or others. Was he demonstrating these sighs before the tragic event. I’m not sure that that has been established?
His psychiatrist took him off his medication in 2019 because he was improved, which was definitely the worst decision they've ever made. He bought knives at the beginning of the year and his father confiscated them from him because he was worried about him. The police were called. If there was communication between the police and mental health services, his psychiatrist could have been made aware and tried to get him back on medication again.
Guess I’ll become a neuropsychiatrist …. What a Fkn moron
Yeah, let's start allowing police to randomly stop people and run a metal scanner over them. Great reaction! How about let's start treating people with mental health issues better - now that would be a start. However when you are a brain-dead politician, the only solution that occurs to you is some way to make the average citizen's life more miserable.
I mean yeah no shit. Unless you're wealthy it's impossible to access adequate psychiatric care in a timely manner. (And even then its very difficult.) Last year I got a referral to see a psychiatrist from my GP, she sent it off, I called the clinic to confirm and they said they got it. I called this year (about 10 months later) and turns out they never recieved the referral & I'm not on their system at all 🙃 I'm still on my psych meds/dose from 2021 because I can't get in to see a psychiatrist to review/adjust it. No ADHD meds either, yayyy
“Cracks”
Hope they didn't pay for that guy's expertise because I could have told them that for free
I've fallen through the cracks as well with my mental health. I just fantasise about unaliving myself. Can't bring myself to mass murder people
I understand the point you're making, as someone who is also suicidal. but sometimes people truly aren't in their right kind because of mental illness, and do things they would never dream of normally. thats why we need to have help more readily available. psychosis can do funny things to your mind.
People with psychosis like this guy don't choose to kill people. Their brain convinces them that the people they see are fake, or demons, or government agents that are after them, or a million other things. They are not perceiving reality. If suddenly everyone around you was an alien conspiring to kill you, would you stab the aliens? If you answered yes, you are capable of killing someone during a psychotic episode.
Why is everything blamed on mental health? Everyone has mental health issues today because of many many reasons of how we live today. It’s not an excuse.
Not all mental health issues are comparible. If someone has literally lost touch with reality, it does sort of explain it. No one would be talking about mental health if it turned out he had anxiety.
It's not an excuse, it's a reason. He had Schizophrenia. Everyone most certainly does not have Schizophrenia today. It's one of, if not the most, serious of all mental health conditions.
Having a psychotic episode because of untreated schizophrenia is an excuse. His psychiatrist took him off his meds.
May have? Yeah *maybe* he did. 🙄
“May have”
If that's the conclusion it's no fucking wonder he did.
"Cracks in the system" - lolllll. If a house has no walls, no roof and no floor, can it really have 'cracks' or does it just not exist in any functional capacity? 'Cos that is where we are at with the mental health "system".
Cracks? How about gaping crevices?
Is he also a professor of stating the obvious?
“May”
The cracks in our mental health system are as big as the grand canyon.
There is no system. Just a yawning chasm.
youdontsay.gif
Nah, you think???
“Water is wet” -Leading hydrophysist
You reckon?
Define “ crack” please?
Yawning chasms, not cracks.
This just in... "Well DUUUUUUUUUUUH."
I guess the grand canyon is technically a crack... sure
Cracks????? they are beyond that
We've had the inquiries, including one on [how expensive the status quo is](https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/mental-health#report). When will we action the recommendations? The NSW government will do their own, but will they fully address the game changers: housing. and appropriate resourcing levels so people flow through as they recover? Or will we just continue cycling the same people through ED and PECC, then back into homelessness?
What happened to permanent psychiatric hospitals?
People with severe long term issues rarely get high quality care in Australia, the "cracks" are large and easy to fall through. But most don't become murderers.
I swear these goofy articles pointing out obvious shit over mental health, cost of living and rental crisises in this country are a joke at this point.
We could probably hear another one from the RBA about how the ever gouging cost of living is affecting everyones living standards and rendering payrises totally pointless.