A letter to the Editor at The Saturday Paper

Jon Jureidini’s published letter to the editor in response to Rick Morton’s article: ‘The truth about spiralling mental-health waitlists’ in The Saturday Paper February 19-25, 2022, No. 387. Available at: https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/health/2022/02/19/the-truth-about-spiralling-mental-health-waitlists/164518920013355#hrd

It is true that the mental health system is broken, but not in the ways Rick Morton’s article emphasises (February 19–25). His case study is telling because of the expensive resources directed towards the suicidal man – by GP, mental health teams and police – to no apparent effect. These are the wrong kind of responses. Living in poverty, this unfortunate man’s distress has been medicalised by a system that ignores social and interpersonal determinants of mental health in favour of a biomedical approach. The problem will not be fixed by directing more funding to the mental health sector. Improving the mental health of the population requires radical – not incremental – change that recognises mental health problems as social and structural, requiring (as Morton’s article does briefly mention) an intersectoral response. Changes need to be made to the conditions of living, rather than to the brains of individuals who suffer.

Prof Jon Jureidini

Article reproduced with publisher's permission.