Reading this again in the light of the generally unexpected budget night announcement to divert funds from the Better Access scheme primarily to the programs of Orygen Youth Health; the ad-hominem attacks against opponents of these funding changes by the Orygen-associated Professors, Dr. Ian Hickie and Dr. Patrick McGorry; the pushing ahead of these ‘reforms’ by the Minister, Mark Butler MP, despite the many hundreds of submissions to the Senate Inquiry against them; and the rollout of e-health (and e-mentalhealth initiatives) tied in with the introduction of managed competition into the Australian health system under Medicare Select (yes folks, don’t miss the often non-disclosed links between eHeadspace/Headspace/, McGorry, Hickie, the NHHRC, Christine Bennett, Bupa Australia (formerly MBF, HCF, Manchester Unity, HBA, Community Mutual, etc.) & Colonial Foundation (fmr. Colonial Mutual insurance society Trust), I’d like to give the Hon. Frank Walker an Order of Australia for his service to Australian mental health.

Frank, you’re right. There’s a lot of bullshit going on under the guise of reform.

Let’s get the private insurance corporations, the pharmaceutical companies and their compromised lobbyists out of OUR health policy decisions and instead work by all means to place the power back in the hands of consumers/patients/clients.

Let’s investigate and support those not-for-profit community-guided mental health organisations whose charitable objectives encourage the care, compassion, and ‘consumer’ & carer participation in service provision that could truly make a positive difference. And finally, let’s keep our GPs and psychologists from becoming solely employees of public-private partnerships if the current UK NHS ‘reforms’ are anything for us to go by.

By: John Alchin