A confidential report recommending the closure of Graylands Hospital, the largest mental health inpatient facility in Western Australia, has been received by State Cabinet.
For decades, Graylands has been the source of contention, a century-old building which has long been criticised for its age and condition.
It was recently the subject of a spate of inquests that found the ageing facility was both overcrowded and under resourced, and just last month, the director-general of the Health Department, Bryant Stokes, said he wanted to “blow up” the institution.
The ABC has been told the Government’s Mental Health Services Plan, aimed at overhauling the sector over the next decade, went before Cabinet on Monday.
One of its critical recommendations is to shut down the hospital, which currently holds about 170 patients.
Mental health advocate and former health minister Keith Wilson, said it was vital the Government accepted the recommendation.
“No other facilities like Graylands exist in other states, and it’s recognised widely that it is out of date, the buildings are dilapidated, and not much has been spent on refurbishing over the last few years under different governments,” he said.
“It’s not a good place for people to be treated or for staff to work.
But Mr Wilson said any move by the Government to close the hospital would need support from the Labor Party.
“It needs to be a firm commitment, the alternatives for those currently accommodated there would need to be spelled out, the costs involved in transferring patients to care would need to be fairly calculated and announced, at best it would have bipartisan support in Parliament because with any change in government you would hope the plan would continue to be implemented without serious changes,” he said.
Patients likely to be moved into community care
Stakeholders are expected to briefed on the plan at a lunch tomorrow.
If Graylands is closed, it is likely many of its patients will be slowly moved into community care.
But the hospital also holds patients who may never be released, such as those who have been referred by the prison system and judiciary.
Currently, they are housed in the maximum-security Frankland Centre, and a new facility would need to be built.
Earlier this month, Professor Stokes said while there was no doubt the state still needed to make similar services available if Graylands was closed, he believed the patients would be better served in a different environment.
“At the moment the Frankland Centre is ill-equipped to deal with patients that require acute services,” he said.
“Many of them are sent from the judiciary… space has to then be found for them to be kept in Graylands centre, and often that necessitates sending patients back to the prison environment when they haven’t had their treatment completed or even completely assessed.
“So if such an area was in a prison environment that makes it a lot easier, but I do not want anyone to consider that I want it to be in the prison physically; but it can be in the environment of a prison, with its own building and its own containment and so forth.”
Closing the hospital would also free up 10 acres of prime real estate at Mount Claremont, in Perth’s western suburbs.
The Government is now being urged to make sure the funds from any sale are put back into the mental health sector, and not used to pay down debt.