Mental healthcare - the blot on Australia's good name

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Anthony Waterlow, 44, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. In November 2009 he stabbed to death his father, Nicholas, and sister Chloe Heuston. They would be alive today had the authorities listened to the repeated requests of the family to supply Anthony with the mental healthcare he needs.

Nicholas and Chloe, as well as other family members, made several attempts to have Anthony "scheduled", as they put it in Australia. "Sectioned" is how it's described in the UK. The story is detailed on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald.

Meanwhile, in The Australian the pressure group GetUp! Australia took a full page advert to demand the government allocate more funding to mental health.

It's not a demand out of the blue. All that GetUp! Australia want the government to do is honour a promise made to deliver mental health reform. The advert quotes Australia's prime minster Julia Gillard, who said on 27 July 2010: "I want to make it clear that mental health will be a second-term priority for the Government"

Australia, friends told me over dinner last night, does not make good provision for the mentally ill. This successful country with its high quality of life, I am told, has an out-dated method of coping mental illness.

According to Response Ability (an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing): About 20% of adult Australians, or one in five people, will experience a mental illness at some stage in their lives. Many will live with more than one mental illness at a time, such as anxiety and depression, which commonly occur together.

"Each year a further 20 000 Australians are found to have a mental illness. In summary:

• Three million Australians will experience a major depressive illness during their lifetime
  
• 5 per cent of Australians experience anxiety so crippling that is affects every aspect of their lives
  
• Almost 1 in 100 Australians will experience schizophrenia during their lifetime
  
• About 3 per cent of Australians will experience a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia during their lifetime.

Today Anthony Waterlow sits in Long Bay prison hospital despite being found not guilty by reason of mental illness of the murder of his father and sister. He will remain there until a place can be found for him at the high-security forensic hospital at Malabar. Time for Julia to honour her promise.