CONSTRUCTION TO BEGIN ON VITAL $6M MENTAL HEALTH FACILITY
Experts hail a step in right direction
CONSTRUCTION is expected to start next week on Cairns’ long-awaited Youth Prevention and Recovery Centre to help young people recover from mental illness.
The $6 million six-bed facility, which will be built on a vacant block along Mayers St, Manoora, will be the first facility in Queensland to provide short-term community based residential care for people aged between 16-21.
It will have six staff, including medical, allied health, nursing and non-government organisation support workers.
The facility, announced by the State Government in 2014, was initially proposed for a site on Law St at Cairns North, but shifted due to complaints from residents.
It is expected to be open by early to mid-2019.
Mental health advocate Ruth Crouch, who has been campaigning for the YPARC for five years, said the centre was crucial for the Far North’s young people.
“It’s about getting young people back to normal,” she said. “It’s not about having them being really sick, and then just going home, and saying ‘now what do I do’?
“It’s about them getting back to their normal life and whatever everyone else is doing at their age.”
The centre is based on a successful model from Victoria, providing a step-up service option to prevent admissions through intense, short-term treatment.
It would also include a stepdown option to assist early and “seamless” transition for young people when re-entering the community following an admission as a mentalhealth patient. Patients are expected to stay at the facility between 2-4 weeks.
Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service mental health clinical director Dr Michael Tervit described the YPARC as being more than a “hospital in a home”.
“This is going to be a massive jump to the care we currently provide to youth,” he said. “This is not an acute unit.
“If people are still requiring inpatient level of care, they will still receive it.
“This is really for consumers who would be going home, but this is an interim step – a really supportive interim step to transitioning back to home.”
Figures from CHHHS show there was 1747 mental health admissions across the Far North during 2016-17, a slight decrease on the previous 12month period.
The service’s mental health director, Marie Kelly, said the centre would provide an opportunity for health professionals to intervene early on a young person’s treatment.