Indigenous Mental Health

Question 1

You are working as a Consultant Psychiatrist in a rural Service. You have been asked to review a neighbouring service by the clinical director of that service. The neighbouring service has a total population of 250,000, with a significant indigenous population, mostly concentrated in two major towns. A Base Hospital, with a 20 bed acute psychiatric unit is in one town with a community team of 8 (full time equivalents) FTE. The other main town has a 4 FTE multidisciplinary community team. The area has one resident psychiatrist. A number of outreach psychiatrists, fly in for the day and service the psychiatry unit. The service under utilises its telemedicine network. The indigenous youth suicide rate has increased and the data shows a high admission rate but low outpatient/community team contact for indigenous youths.
The first question is:
Discuss how you would approach this task.

Answer 1

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