A Melbourne health provider has ordered its hospitals to discharge at least three mental health patients each day, according to an internal document obtained by the ABC.
The Bed Access and Patient Flow document was issued by Monash Health earlier this month and given to 774 ABC Melbourne.
It instructs staff to discharge a minimum of three patients a day from all mental health wards, starting on January 12.
Monash Health said the health service recognised the need to plan for three patients to be discharged per day, but it was a target not a mandate.
Medical Director of Mental Health, Professor David Clarke, said the document would be withdrawn and re-written to reflect that.
But the state Assistant Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation, Pip Carew, said it was extremely troubling.
“It’s one of the most alarming documents that we’ve ever seen,” Ms Carew said.
“Their intention is to put the system before patient care.
“Particularly for mental health, this is a very disturbing and dangerous action on the part of the health service if they intend proceeding down this path.”
The document also instructs daily handover meetings to be renamed “discharge planning meetings” in which at least five patients are to be identified for discharge.
Ms Carew said the directive was likely to put patients and staff in danger.
“I don’t want to be flippant but for nurses to be tapping patients on the shoulder and saying ‘I’m sorry you need to be discharged today’ – of course patients, relatives will become disturbed, agitated, distressed by such an initiative,” she said.
“And that can only make a situation, that’s already under extraordinary pressure, worse.”
Professor Clarke said the document was badly written but he supported its sentiment.
“We know from the history what our on average demand for beds are so we have to plan to discharge patients at the same rate,” Professor Clarke said.
“I’m not going to defend everything in the document.
“I think we’d like to re-word some aspects of it to make it more patient centred.”