Tasmanian Health Minister defends action to seclude young girl in an adult psychiatric ward

Labor leader Rebecca White said the situation highlighted the lack of beds and services for young people with mental health illness in the state.

“Why do you not provide adequate resources and staff to provide quality care for mental health patients in Tasmania?” she asked Health Minister Michael Ferguson.

“You have spent nearly five years in the job now as Health Minister and there are still no dedicated child and adolescent mental health beds in Tasmania.”

Mr Ferguson said the state had never had dedicated inpatient psychiatric services for children and facilities in the North and South would completed within 12 months.

“We have never had those facilities and we are now building them,” he said.

He said the government had increased funding for child and adolescent mental health services by $800,000 a year over the past three years.

Mr Ferguson said young people placed in adult psychiatric wards had clinical oversight and review from the state’s Chief Psychiatrist.

“He has not raised with me any concerns in this area about inappropriate treatment being given,” he said.

Labor echoed the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation’s comments the Department of Psychiatry at the Royal Hobart Hospital was about five full-time equivalent staff short.

The union has called for a psychiatric emergency nurse to be based at the North West Regional Hospital but this has gone unanswered.

Mr Ferguson said there was a psychiatric emergency nurse service at the Royal Hobart Hospital and a similar service would be trialed over 12 months at the Launceston General Hospital once recruitment had been completed.

Mr Ferguson said the government had a $95 million mental health policy which included 25 additional dedicated mental health beds.

Later, Labor's health spokeswoman Sarah Lovell described the absence of inpatient adolescent mental health beds as a massive gap in the health service.

"The government has a plan for some beds to be opened ... but there is very little in their budget commitments to address the crisis that we have now," she said.