source : the age
Every suicide is one too many. A state Department of Health spokesperson made the comment to The Age in relation to two clusters of youth suicides in Melbourne. This week we reported that a total of 10 young people, at least six under 16 – the youngest being 13 – died in September-October last year and last May. The spokesperson is, of course, right.
The suicide of a young life carries with it an intensity of pain, primarily for family and friends, but in a wider sphere to the community. It is an issue that requires immediate attention. It must be tackled and it must be above politics and its attendant point scoring.
The tragedies are the latest revelations regarding Victoria’s youth mental health system to emerge from The Age’s reporting on the area this month. The investigations have uncovered the closure of a children’s mental health service at a major Melbourne hospital pending a bullying investigation into certain staff. In parliament on Friday, opposition health spokesperson Georgie Crozier named the service as Austin Health’s child inpatient unit.
Separately, Dr Leanne Geppert, chief executive of Victoria’s flagship youth mental health service, resigned after it was disclosed she was leading the Parkville Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing Service as a fly-in, fly-out chief executive. The service opened in 2025 in response to Victoria’s royal commission into mental health, but six senior youth mental health clinicians leading specialty programs have quit, and two patients’ deaths have been referred to the coroner.
The state Coalition called on Tuesday for an independent panel to be established to investigate the youth suicide clusters and to act before the November election. The call is the right one; to attach it to the election is not. This is too important an issue to be merely a cog in the electoral cycle. Indigenous groups said on Tuesday that 121 Indigenous Victorians had died from suicide since the royal commission into mental health’s final report. They backed the Coalition’s call for a review.
It is abundantly clear a review is needed specifically into the circumstances surrounding the suicide clusters in Melbourne’s east, and the mental health system as a whole. A review must look into access to services for the young, the conditions of services available to them and outreach’s need to expand. There cannot be any excuse for not setting one up.
It is alarming that because the Department of Health does not have records of the young people in the clusters receiving help at public hospitals before they died, neither the Chief Psychiatrist, Safer Care Victoria nor the Suicide Prevention and Response Office is reviewing services in the areas where the clusters occurred. Surely, it is important to do so.
Dr Nardine Elzahaby, of the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Victoria, is critical of the state’s youth mental health system. Health services were “adult models retrofitted for young people”, she said. “There is a gap. There is a missing middle of patients who require care that are not too unwell to meet youth area mental health criteria, but they are too unwell to be looked after by [youth mental health service] headspace. Do young people have to rely on emergency departments to get child and youth suicide programs? ED is hardly ever the right place for young people.”
This last point is the crux. Youth mental health pioneer Professor Patrick McGorry adds to the observation: “The public mental health system has not been reformed or properly resourced to respond to this public health crisis, and it has been a low priority since the royal commission … The result is that young people at great risk who present to emergency departments or triage lines are typically rejected in very large numbers. If this were occurring with any other potentially life-threatening condition, it would be regarded as a scandal.”
Despite mental health services being alerted to the number of youth suicides, a review into the cases has not been launched. Why? Of course, the coroner will look into individual cases, but that must not stop an examination of mental health services.
Every youth suicide is hope extinguished. We owe our young people the belief that hope lives. We can show that by, at the very least, initiating a review.
If you or anyone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
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