A North East program helping mothers battling mental illness during and after pregnancy has been given a financial lifeline.
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But funding for the Perinatal Emotional Health Program is still only guaranteed until the end of this year.
Albury Wodonga Health is continuing to lobby hard for money for the vital program to at least cover 2016.
The federal government announced earlier this year that it would pull out its support as of July 1.
Albury Wodonga Health mental health and drugs executive director Michael Nuck said it was extremely pleasing to receive official confirmation from state Mental Health Minister Martin Foley of funding until December.
“We’re trying to figure how we can actually make that work,” he said.
“And we’re not stopping the pressure on the federal government.”
While Victoria’s contribution was only 50 per cent of the estimated $300,000 program cost, the service remained committed to not cutting services.
Mr Nuck said the program had people based in Wangaratta and Wodonga who responded to women in the perinatal period, either when pregnant or during the 12 months after birth.
“This is a really high risk period in terms of emotional disregulation, but also mental health issues and more serious types of mental illness,” he said.
“It’s a very pro-active service that works closely with maternal child health, maternity services, GPs and in accepting referrals.
“It’s very mobile as it goes out to where the women are in terms of doing assessments and doing counselling and initiating treatment.”
Mr Nuck said it was about getting mothers into appropriate care.
“We’ve currently got more than 100 women who are accessing our service,” he said.
Mr Nuck said they had been “pleasantly surprised” by the amount of support from past users and also specialists, GPs, maternal health nurses and other hospitals.
“We’ve got ongoing discussions with the government on how much the state will pick up, how much the Commonwealth will reconsider its decision and then how that could actually be supported by other health dollars.”
![Mum's support: Funding has been secured for a program helping new or impending mothers battling mental health issues . Mum's support: Funding has been secured for a program helping new or impending mothers battling mental health issues .](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/zTpV5j6X6iLmSh5SbcmSaP/50f9e8c2-ebec-430d-a9fa-51d95f9367a8.jpg/r195_101_3247_2336_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)