Sometimes, clusters of thoughts or issues occur together, leading to greater insights.

It was not long after I had written my AusDoc article on the significance of hospital admission for elderly patients, that I saw the Four Corners episode ‘Emergency, the long wait for help’.

The program was billed as being about “the collapse of public mental health care in NSW”, but the content was mostly about access to inpatient beds, and the inordinate lengths of time that some patients wait in ED for admission to inpatient mental health beds.

Patients who had been assessed in ED and found to be suitable for discharge were described as having been “turned away”.

Others, waiting in ED for inpatient beds, were described as having waited days to “see a doctor”.

There’s a theme here. Hospital admission can be seen by some as the only productive outcome, with an assessment being insufficient validation of their suffering.

It’s worth discussing two significant events that have changed the face of public hospital mental health admissions.