More than 1 in 5 Australians will suffer a mental illness that requires
hospitalisation or community mental health service support in their lifetime.
Over the last decade the number of nurses working in the mental health.
sector has increased by 50 per cent.
Mental health nursing is all about working in a multidisciplinary team. We've all got eclectic skills and so a
multidisciplinary team in providing a service for our patients. We've got ATT
services which is assessment treatment team, the home treatment team that we're
going to be opening as well but also we've got consultation liaison where you
actually work within the general hospital. Working with the homeless,
working with drug and alcohol services, so there's so many roads that you could take.
Working in mental health means working differently;
different places, different patients, and different solutions.
One that I'm doing at the moment with the police we work an afternoon and I'm driving around in a
unmarked police car with a couple of officers and we're attending all of the
welfare calls, the mental health jobs that the police get called to.
In rural and remote settings you often get a lack of general health services, a lack of
allied health services, a lack of options of where to refer so you get a huge, rich
experience because there aren't so many services and you get a wonderful
opportunity to develop loads of skills that you wouldn't if you were in a metropolitan area.
Mental disorders can vary in severity and can be short term
or episodic or persistent and requiring long term healthcare solutions.
In postnatal mental health we work with mothers who usually when they're
pregnant some mums go through postnatal depression which can be psychosis,
being a first-time mum it can be very frightening for them we support them
through that journey, stabilise their mental health, so they can go back to normal functioning.
So a lot of people that come to the service have very poor physical health
and they're already attending a community outpatient service and my role
is to engage them in primary care through using a unique model
of looking at their... being sensitive to their psychiatric concerns
as well as undertaking assessment, screening and care of their physical health.
Nursing in the mental health sector offers a unique opportunity to make a real difference to
the outcomes of vulnerable people in our community. The motivation for work is
trying to make a change and make a positive difference to people's lives
it's more about sort of developing a relationship with patients and
working out what their mental state is and what you need to do to keep them safe.
Every day you learn something new about somebody that you're going to work with.
Mental health is a growing sector in
nursing with vast career opportunities for nurses from all disciplines and levels.
I always say to students that come through there's so many opportunities.
I completed my statewide graduate program here and I loved it and
I just never left.
I did a comprehensive degree in nursing in New Zealand and then chose to
specialise in mental health and started a grad program there through the University of Otago
and then spent some time inpatient nursing and then travelled to Australia.
I think Australia needs more mental health nurses. We need to encourage all the young nurses that are joining the profession,
give them branch exposure, allow them to come and do more clinical placements in
mental health settings so they can see what it is, what it entails and then they can
make an informed decision to become a mental health nurse.
You have just this massive opportunity to impact people and I think that's really, really exciting.
If you ask a person on the street "what does a nurse do?" they wouldn't describe
anything that a mental health nurse does because it's such a different, unique role.
All of those wonderful attributes that nurses have wherever we are,
really come to the forefront in mental health.