MANY mental health patients are still waiting more than eight hours to receive care at Sunshine Hospital.
March quarter performance data revealed 96 mental health patients had had to wait eight hours or more before being admitted.
Sunshine Hospital had the longest waiting times for mental health treatment and hospital admissions in Victoria.
Werribee Mercy Hospital was second-worst, with 72 patients waiting longer than eight hours; then followed the Northern Hospital in Epping with 68 patients.
The Weekly reported in May that a dozen mental health patients a week were waiting more than eight hours for emergency department admission to Sunshine Hospital.
Data for the December 2011 quarter showed 141 mental health patients waited eight or more hours.
Western Metropolitan Labor MP Wade Noonan said the figures showed mental health patients in the west had been left “languishing”.
“This data shows that Sunshine Hospital is finding it increasingly difficult to assist people who require treatment for a mental illness,” he said.
A Melbourne Health spokeswoman said all mental health patients were triaged and treated according to the severity of their condition.
She said the outer west had experienced a population increase of 15 per cent, increasing demand for health services.
“The outer west region has a relatively high social disadvantage that’s reflected in poor health status,” she said.
The spokeswoman said that since July 2011 more than 2000 people had attended Sunshine Hospital because of mental health issues or drug use.
More than 550 of these patients required a mental health admission after a clinical assessment.
She said new funding from the state government was expected at the beginning of 2013, allowing for an additional four mental health beds and extra staff at Sunshine.
The spokeswoman said a new model of care had been developed between specialist mental health services and primary care providers to reduce the chances of mental illness progressing to a stage where emergency care was required.
