Dear Minister Jackson,
I am deeply concerned by reports that the NSW Government is considering allowing involuntary patients—those detained under the Mental Health Act—to be admitted and treated in private, for-profit hospitals.
In doing so, you would be placing some of the state’s most vulnerable people in settings that are unequipped to provide them with the care they need.
The possibility of profit motives influencing the assessment of people experiencing mental illness and whether or not they are detained against their will is a fundamental risk to human rights.
I urge you to rule this out.
The NSW government has allowed our public hospital system to become so underfunded and unsafely resourced that there has been a mass exodus of psychiatrists.
Instead of expanding privatised health care, the NSW government should be investing in public mental health services, including paying our highly skilled staff. The latest modelling shows that it would be cheaper for the government to pay psychiatrists what they are asking for instead of continuing to rely on expensive temporary contractors.
I urge you to rule out detaining involuntary patients in private hospitals and commit to investing in our public mental health workforce and services.

I would like to BCC myself

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