Tasmanians are continuing to reach out to mental health services at record rates in what has been described as a positive outcome of the pandemic.
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While Tasmania has enjoyed a long period without a positive case of COVID-19 people are still feeling the lingering impacts of the pandemic, says Lifeline Tasmania chief executive officer Debbie Evans.
Ms Evans said one of the positives of the pandemic was the greater focus on mental health, which has led to more people reaching out for support.
Throughout 2020 Lifeline's 24-hour crisis support line received more than 3000 calls per day nationally - about one call every 30 seconds. Of those calls about 120 will be from people considering suicide at the time of the call or in the future.
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In May, the Tasmanian government funded a Tasmanian Lifeline for people experiencing mental health issues related to the pandemic. The service differs from the traditional support number as it provides a call back and outreach services.
Ms Evans said the pandemic was still impacting the mental health of Tasmanians with the service receiving spikes in calls following changes to the COVID-19 situation across Australia. "Over the last nine months what we have noticed is that the number of calls are increasing, particularly when we have an impact of COVID," she said.
"What we find at those times is we have an increase in calls to the 1800 number. What we have also found is that in the very early days the focus for callers was very much on COVID-19 and anxiety, loneliness and isolation. We've found is those sorts of issues are still there but what we are getting is more generalised mental health issues as well.
"COVID has had a huge impact on our mental health as a population, so when we talk about numbers increasing for any of the help lines I think to some extent that is also quite positive because it means that the message is getting out there that it is OK to be struggling."
As part of the government's pandemic response it funded the Mental Health Council of Tasmania to provide updates on how COVID-19 was affecting the mental health of Tasmanians. The latest report found that demand for services rose dramatically in November.
"Data gathered during November 2020 indicates a significantly high increase in referrals to social support services, along with increases in referrals to family violence and/or relationship services in comparison to the previous month," the report reads.
"Since June 2020, MHCT has consistently raised the issue of limited service capacity, however, unfortunately this has reached a point where people are now unable to access face to face support."
Mental Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff said the government was investing more in mental health than ever before and was in the process of reforming the system to provide more holistic support.
"We are building a contemporary, integrated model of mental health care with an additional $16 million in the 2020-21 State Budget to improve and better connect services, and to immediately begin reforming our Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services," he said.
"Since the release of [December] update by the Mental Health Council the government provided additional funding to Anglicare to expand their Alcohol and Drug response line to a 24/7 operation."
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