Fremantle Hospital's $16M psychiatric facilities at Alma St Centre opened

9/11/94

Premier Richard Court has reaffirmed the Government's strong commitment to improving mental health services in Western Australia and to meeting the needs of the mentally-ill.

Opening Fremantle Hospital's new $16 million psychiatric facilities at the Alma Street Centre today, Mr Court said the facility was indicative of the high priority being given to mental health care by the State Government and represented a new approach to the delivery of psychiatric services to the southern metropolitan region.

"We are well aware of the enormous numbers of people who may suffer a mental illness at some stage of their lives, and we are determined to ensure that their needs are met," the Premier said.

"To that end, we have increased spending on mental health services by 18 per cent in the past two financial years, to a level of $97.2 million in 1994-95.

"To ensure that basic community services are also in place in country areas, which have been under-serviced for many years, expenditure on rural mental health has been increased four-fold since 1992-93 to a level of $3.9 million.

"There is a growing demand for services, but I believe our efforts in the recent past and our plans to assist people to remain in, or return to the community as soon as possible, will begin to make real inroads into this problem."

Mr Court said facilities such as the Alma Street Centre would play a pivotal role in this process, and in the Government's policy of mainstreaming services by connecting psychiatric services to major, acute-care teaching hospitals and regional hospitals.

"Mainstreaming will enable general health services to become much more responsive to the needs of mentally-ill people living in the community, whilst providing acute care when necessary," he said.

"The opening of the Alma Street Centre provides the opportunity to develop such services for the people of Fremantle and the south metropolitan area.

"It is new, customer-focused service is based on clinical teams who will care for specific clients, providing continuity of care to link in-patient and out-patient services with community services and family support.

"The teams will deliver services in the fields of adult psychiatry, intensive rehabilitation, psychiatry for the elderly, children and adolescents, and day-hospital services."