January 27, 2010 – 11:20 am
Continuing his series on mental health reform, Sydney psychiatrist Professor Alan Rosen argues that the states – well most of them anyway – have forfeited the right to run community mental health services.
He writes:
December 22, 2009 – 8:43 am
If 2009 was the year of health reform talk, will 2010 be the year of health reform action? I wouldn’t bet my Christmas stocking on it.
The mental health sector is watching the state of play in health reform closely, and no wonder. The sector potentially has the most to gain from reform – but it [...]
December 18, 2009 – 9:42 am
Yesterday’s Croakey post about a study examining whether pharmacists could play a greater role in community mental health care has brought a few responses.
One of the study’s authors, psychiatrist Professor Alan Rosen, has replied to some of Croakey’s queries about the barriers to wider implementation of such initiatives.
And Ron Batagol, a pharmacy and drug information consultant, [...]
December 17, 2009 – 10:35 am
Croakey has been asking some tough questions about the pharmacy profession in recent posts (here and here, in case you missed them).
Not surprisingly, some in the profession may have felt a little miffed that the critique didn’t acknowledge that good work is being done.
Thanks to Dr Simon Bell, a pharmacist with connections to the University [...]
December 10, 2009 – 10:48 am
We would all be better off if there were more doctors in Parliament. That was the argument made by Dr Tanveer Ahmed, a psychiatry registrar, in this opinion piece in the SMH yesterday.
He noted that Andrew Macdonald, a pediatrician from south-west Sydney, is the only doctor in a NSW Parliament of 140 MPs. “Surely there [...]
November 26, 2009 – 11:13 am
Alarm bells are ringing amongst some in the mental health sector about the potential impact of the Feds’ plans for a wider roll out of income management.
Here is what Barbara Hocking, executive director of SANE Australia, has to say:
November 11, 2009 – 9:58 am
Sandy Jeffs is an award winning poet who has recently released a memoir, Flying with Paper Wings, which, amongst other things, tells her story of living with schizophrenia.
Here she shares with Croakey readers some of the background to the book and her writing of it:
November 4, 2009 – 2:16 pm
As the previous Croakey post points out, the news about Indigenous smoking rates may be more encouraging than we’ve previously understood.
Dr Mark Ragg, a health and communications expert, believes the history of smoking among people with mental illness holds some lessons for those working to tackle Indigenous smoking, and also gives cause for optimisim.
He writes:
“David [...]
November 2, 2009 – 7:10 pm
In recent weeks, Croakey has run several articles examining the potential pros and cons of the Medicare Select concept floated by the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission in its final report.
Now a senior mental health advocate, Sebastian Rosenberg, is weighing into the debate, asking what such a model might mean for those with mental [...]
October 2, 2009 – 10:47 am
Are we on the verge of real health reform?
We’re not even close – and if you’re expecting anything meaningful to happen before 2020, you’re just not paying close enough attention.
That’s the assessment of Professor Ian Hickie, executive director of the Brain and Mind Research Institute at the University of Sydney.
And he thinks the Federal [...]
