When Jess sought help in a mental health crisis, emergency doctors pointed her in the direction of a private hospital.
“Even though I was, like, acutely suicidal and manic, I wasn’t admitted (publicly),” she told AAP.
“I was told to try and get admitted to a private hospital, even though I didn’t have a psychiatrist or anything at the time.”
Jess, who is using a pseudonym for anonymity, has since spent weeks at a time in private psychiatric wards across Sydney, costing $20,000 for a three-week stay.
That route was only open to her through her parents’ private health insurance as well as their emotional support.
It’s a path many more will be forced onto amid a looming mental health crisis in NSW, where the public sector psychiatrist workforce could drop to 21 per cent of its full strength.
Contingencies are being urgently drawn up to deal with 203 resignations early next week, including temporarily re-hiring some for $3000 a day.
Mental health specialists say the public sector system is failing patients due to uncompetitive salaries and chronic understaffing.
“This isn’t a crisis, it’s a collapse,” emergency specialist Lex Narushevich said on Wednesday.
“I have watched my consultants and staff specialists suffer from this burden, and I do not want to suffer myself,” psychiatrist in training James Leader said.
Informal supports such as families and friends would be forced to absorb some of the fallout, as would emergency departments, mental health social workers and other allied health workers, a consumer advocate said.
The impending crisis, however, also highlighted the severe underinvestment in mental health over years, requiring widescale reform and substantial funding boosts, Giancarlo de Vera said.
“Mental health is 15 per cent of the burden of disease in NSW but it only gets five per cent of the health funding,” the chief executive of consumer peak body Being told AAP.
“If they (psychiatrists) get the increase they want, what will be forgone (in the current budget)?
“It’s a very fine balance which needs to be seen in the context of, and driven by, people who experience mental health distress.”
Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson, who met with psychiatrists on Wednesday, did not shy away from the grim assessment.
“I don’t think mental health has been properly funded in this state,” she told reporters.
“There are a number of gaps in the system.”
But finding money to pay for improvements without raising taxes was already difficult before public sector psychiatrists’ 25 per cent wage claim, she said.
Ms Jackson urged the staff specialists to reconsider the government’s 10.5 per cent offer, instead of resorting to “pretty aggressive and dangerous tactics of mass resignation”.
“Walking away, not being part of the system or part of the solution doesn’t help anyone, least of all the patients who we know the psychiatrists care about,” she said.
“We can’t make up a decade of wage suppression in one year.”
Plans to deal with mass resignations taking effect on Monday and Tuesday include setting up an emergency co-ordination centre at NSW Health HQ and leaning more on contract doctors.
Regional hospitals are expected to feel less of an impact due to their already heavy reliance on contracted psychiatrists.
But doing that statewide was not feasible long-term, officials said.
Chief psychiatrist Murray Wright said people with mental health issues and their families should not hesitate to seek help.
“We are doing everything we can to maintain our services to a high standard,” he said.
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