A parliamentary committee tasked with scrutinising Queensland’s mental health system has highlighted a lack of spending on support services and a dramatic rise in triple-0 calls from people in crisis.
Over six months, Queensland parliament's Mental Health Select Committee has heard harrowing evidence from health services, advocates and people with lived experience of mental health issues.
Of those was Shane Hicks, who spoke about his schizophrenia diagnosis as a young man.
"Over the next five years [after my diagnosis], there was ongoing trial and error of medications, therapies and I could not do paid work," Mr Hicks said.
"[That] led me to … move back in with my parents and go on government welfare payments … significant depression and anxiety, total isolation from society, loss of independence, hospitalisations."
The committee also heard of the lived experience of family members and carers of people experiencing mental health issues.
Kingaroy Chamber of Commerce president Damien Martoo shared the impact of suicide on his family and community after the loss of his son before Christmas.
"It just does not stop immediately after you lose your child. This is a forever issue."
Mental health having 'frequently fatal' impact
Committee chair Joe Kelly said the impact on families and society "cannot be underestimated".
Mr Kelly wrote that mental health, suicidality, as well as alcohol and drug issues, were having an "enormous" and "frequently fatal" impact on Queenslanders struggling with mental health issues.
The committee heard the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) had 170,000 call-outs a year from people experiencing a "mental health crisis", which made up for 13 per cent of all emergencies.
During its investigations, the committee found calls to triple-0 from people experiencing a mental health crisis were the "second-most-frequent" type of call, after falls.
It found the QAS had seen an "upward trend" of calls from people experiencing a mental health crisis of between 15 to 20 per cent each year over the past five years.
They include "high-risk scenarios, an exacerbation of an existing mental health condition, a suicide crisis, significant life events, domestic violence, and drug and alcohol-abuse issues".
The committee also heard Queensland's first responders were at a "greater risk" of poor mental health due to the nature of their work.
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Queensland has nation's lowest mental health spend
The committee highlighted that Queensland had the lowest per-capita expenditure on mental health services in Australia in 2019-2020, which was "below the national average".
It found that, while per-capita expenditure on public hospital and health services had grown by 62 per cent between 2009 and 2019, mental health per capita expenditure had only increased by 10 per cent during the same time period
This was despite "significant" growth in demand for services.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) told the inquiry an immediate funding increase of $88 million per year would bring Queensland's mental health spending into line with the national average.
Further, it told the inquiry, a recurrent annual funding increase of up to $750 million per year, on a pro rata basis, was needed in the long-term, to match Victorian government funding.
Queensland Health's acting director-general, Shaun Drummond, told the inquiry the $750 million proposal was not feasible.
"One of the things it does not take into account is a relative efficiency … it is looking at a per-capita spend.
"I do not believe $750 million is the right amount because it has not taken into account some of our complexity or the spend that is occurring in our system."
Mr Drummond said there were also issues with "capped" Commonwealth funding.
'Urgent government attention'
Mr Kelly said "urgent attention and cooperation" from all levels of government was needed to address the issue.
The committee made 57 recommendations, including increased state government funding for mental health and other support services, but did not name a number.
It recommended a “dedicated funding stream” be established to finance mental health, alcohol and drug services.
The Victorian government plans to establish a levy on big businesses to help pay for billions of dollars of mental health services funding — but the committee did not specify whether Queensland should follow that example.
LNP committee members Rob Molhoek, Amanda Camm and Christian Rowan wrote in a statement of reservation that it was “firmly” their view that a new payroll tax — similar to the Victorian one — was not the answer.
They wrote that the funds required could be raised from existing revenue, without cutting services or staff.
In her own statement of reservation, Greens MP Amy MacMahon proposed increasing mining royalties, taxing developers and a levy on big banks as a way of establishing additional funding streams.
The report also recommended a new public health campaign to reduce stigma, strengthened service delivery in rural and regional Queensland, and improved access to secure and affordable housing.
Delivery of the report comes amid record levels of ambulance ramping in Queensland.
