Wednesday, 29 October 2025

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:28): I rise to speak on the Department of Health annual report 2024–25. Over the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of meeting with and getting to know a group of passionate young people who are advocating for adolescent mental health beds in the Hume region. The group who call themselves Silent Sounds of Survivors is conducting a Parliament of Victoria online petition calling on the government to provide eight acute inpatient mental health beds for adolescents in the Hume region. These young people with lived experience of the mental health system explained to me in detail the dehumanising experience they endured. There was not a single adolescent acute inpatient mental health bed in the Hume region. The closest beds are located at Box Hill, 3½ hours away from Wodonga and 2½ hours away from Shepparton and Wangaratta.

Victoria has only 58 child and adolescent mental health beds to service the state, and only four of these are in regional Victoria – two in Mildura and two in Traralgon. For young people in the Hume region, this means they must compete for a bed in the metropolitan area. Patients from the Hume region are sent to Box Hill, where there are 12 beds that are almost always full and sometimes closed.

Last week I met with some of the young people who told me their stories. They described the dehumanising experience of waiting for hours in the emergency department, which is not a therapeutic environment for a young person and can further contribute to their deteriorating mental health state. Even worse was the description of a typical transfer to Box Hill that involved being strapped to a stretcher in an inpatient transport vehicle or divvy van, frightened and alone. They said that sometimes families are left to transport the young people, and the families are told to lock the doors and not let the young person out of their sight. They told me the story of a young woman who had been the victim of abuse, and yet she was placed in the care of her abuser for the transfer. This led to her being retraumatised by the time she reached Box Hill. They also told me how difficult it was to get a bed at Box Hill, and said beds were either full or sometimes closed due to staff shortages.

It is clear that the current situation is not delivering good health outcomes for the young people or their families. Young people are traumatised by the process. They are removed from their community and support networks. One of the girls described how her time spent at Box Hill meant that when she returned, she felt disconnected from her sporting clubs, friends and other services.

In the past I have been contacted by families of young people who are distraught that their child is so far away and that due to work or the need to look after other children they cannot be with them when they are needed most. We all know that patients recover much better when they can stay in their own community, and Box Hill is a very long way from communities in northern and north-east Victoria.

The final report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System on page 4 of volume 2 says:

Victoria’s young people, aged 12–25 years, will be supported to grow into adulthood with good mental health and wellbeing.

It is time the government delivered on this.

Recommendation 21(2)(b) recommends the government create:

… a new stream of inpatient beds across Victoria for young people aged 18 to 25 by reconfiguring existing inpatient beds for adults and using an allocation of the 100 new beds referred to in recommendation 11(3) …

Now, while I do not agree that these beds should only be for 18- to 25-year-olds, because we also need beds for 12- to 18-year-olds, at least it gives some indication that regionally located beds for young people were in the minds of the commissioners.

Both Albury Wodonga Health and GV Health are about to undergo redevelopments of their mental health departments. Both these redevelopments seem to be in limbo, and the government needs to get on with the job because these services are desperately needed. Money has been allocated for the redevelopment of Nolan House at Albury Wodonga Health that includes 32 adult beds only. GV Health was allocated money for a redevelopment in the 2023–24 budget. It was supposed to be completed by October to December 2026, but it has been pushed out to June 2029. This project has not even broken ground, and due to the two-and-a-half-year delay, GV Health will most likely have to do a review of service provision. Both these projects present the perfect opportunity to provide acute inpatient adolescent beds for 12- to 18-year-olds in the Hume region.

I call on the minister to listen to the young people of Silent Sounds of Survivors and deliver these services and beds that they so desperately need. In doing so, Minister, I point out that the young people want and need acute inpatient beds. The Youth Prevention and Recovery Care (YPARC) facilities and other services do not provide this level of care. The minister should also review recommendation 9 of the royal commission that recommended:

four safe space facilities across the state, comprising a mix of drop-in spaces and crisis response services, co-designed with and for young people.

The update on this recommendation on the department website just says it will be implemented in future. This is not good enough – (Time expired)