People with mental health issues are facing staggering wait times at hospital emergency departments as their only option.
According to official Victorian Agency for Health Information statistics, in April-June 2025, just 4 per cent of adult patients were transferred from an emergency department to a mental health bed at Dandenong Hospital within eight hours.
This was the lowest rate in the state, and well below the 44 per cent statewide average.
Calls have been made for increased community support for those with mental health conditions to drive down the increasing number of people presenting to hospital EDs.
The not-for-profit Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia (MIFA) has found that 460,000 people have no access to “much-needed” community support for their conditions, warning that this number will continue to grow.
There are currently no other alternatives, besides a visit to a general practitioner for referrals to specialists, .
Its CEO, Tony Stevenson, says the state and federal government need to establish a joint plan to fund and provide psychosocial support services in Greater Dandenong.
“Community mental health organisations are ready and able to roll out these services if the funding is available.
“Psychosocial support services can support people to stay well and live safely and independently in their community.
“This will reduce or prevent unnecessary hospital admissions.”
He says there’s a gap in psychosocial support services, which provide community mental health services by trained support workers at a person’s home, family and community.
It provides support to enable the person to live independently safe and well through support with housing, employment, family connections social inclusion and daily living skills.
Mr Stevenson claims this will drive down “unnecessary time in hospital,” as well as prevent and reduce homelessness and poverty.
A Greater Dandenong local Noelene, had to wait up to 12 hours at the Dandenong Hospital ED years back.
She presented to the ED for her daughter who suffers from severe anxiety, depression, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder and attention defecit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
She says the wait times themselves add to the anxiety.
“We have a doctor’s clinic that dispense her medications, they are good and she can go to the triage there instead of the hospital if its during opening hours.”
At the age of 24 now, her daughter has been on NDIS for four years now, receiving vital support through the program and its support workers.
Since NDIS, her daughter has progressed significantly now requiring rare attendance to the ED.
A report by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) last year found patients spent seven hours in an ED before being admitted to hospital in 2022-’23.
The report, ‘Public hospital report card: mental health edition’ found the mental health system is in crisis with longer wait times, reduced services, increase in mental health severity and patients requiring urgent attention has more than doubled.
It reveals the multiple strains on public hospitals as “record high waiting times and record low per-person bed capacity” replicated in mental health wards with only 27 beds per 100,000 Australians.
That is identified as the lowest per-person capacity figure on record.
Ten per cent of patients spent more than 23 hours waiting, it found.
MIFA advocated for stronger connection between the community and people facing mental health issues this World Mental Health Day on Friday, October 10.
Monash Health, which operates Dandenong Hospital, was contacted for comment.
