Mental health shortfall
Albury Wodonga Health administrators need to listen to Susan Robey and Winter Solstice advocate Annette Baker because these people know what they are talking about.
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I have witnessed a person seeking mental health care being assessed and then sent away because of no beds.
This person was completely psychotic and in urgent need of help, returning home to distraught family members, taken back again in a few days when they were in a worse condition finally admitted.
I have also been with a young person threatening to suicide but being sent away because of no suitable facilities.
Mental health facilities, namely Nolan House, should be a major priority for Albury Wodonga Health, what is available has been and still is for many years totally inadequate.
Stop talking about getting maternity back and start taking action on a facility that is already housed at Albury.
We need to recognise that mental problems in our youth and adults is a huge issue and needs action.
The answer always seems to be “it's in the pipeline”, but unless people keep pushing it will be shoved under the carpet.
People power can work wonders; look what happened with the hydrotherapy pool at Albury base.
Ethel Wilson, Lavington
Oz Day worth a debate
Like the abandoned inflatables littering the nation’s great rivers following the celebration of national values, coalition arguments like a stolen jumbuck stuffed into their political tucker bag are already taking water and looking weary.
The same selective reading of history applied by conservatives attempting to defeat marriage equality has been dragged out by the current unelected prime minister and his “team” to threaten and bully elected councils listening and responding to their local communities
In a move more worthy of King Canute than Ned Kelly, Coalition MPs are now proposing legislation to enforce compliance to petrify the political moment and force the national vehicle into reverse .
The date of Australia Day is more set in damper than stone.
The current debate testifies to the positive evolution of national values from an Australian people who have abandoned the ark to which some political parties and religious institutions are clinging while singing anthems and creeds that definitely have flies on them and are headed for the wheelie bin.
Changing the date might render our national day more vulnerable to hijacking by a new generation of political marketeers Photoshopping out both our challenging history the stain of injustice to Australia’s first peoples.
The debate over Australia day ensures that our history, tragic inequality of opportunity and outcomes and appalling lack of political action cannot be whitewashed by any party’s political machine.
Like sand in Australia’s cossie, these issues will continue to rub and be impossible to ignore until they are publicly and constitutionally dealt with.