Mental health services

for the elderly in this state have just been revealed to be a disgrace. Why am I not surprised?
What will become known as "the Lander report" or the "Oakden report" was made public yesterday. I have yet to read it but I know I need to do so.
Oakden was the institute which was the cause of  the report. It was a state run mental health facility for the elderly. It was also a disgrace.
I think I have written about it elsewhere in this blog. I paid a single visit to the place some years ago. What I saw then disturbed me. It disturbed me so much that I wrote a letter to the Minister responsible at that time.
Note I say "Minister responsible". I was making a report about something I found disturbing, so disturbing that I wrote a letter. Now I am used to having letters I write to government Ministers and others acted upon in one way or another. I choose my targets carefully. I know how to write the letter. 
You state the problem. You suggest the solution. You ask for action to be taken. 
I went to Oakden with someone else. She was concerned about the treatment her father was getting. She asked me to go along to support her.  Knowing the background I was willing to help so she picked me up and we went out there on a cold winter morning. 
I have visited other mental health facilities. In teacher training college I did a ten week stint in one trying to do "art therapy" with patients who were not allowed anything that might cause harm to themselves or others. There was an armed guard at the door. Obviously I survived the experience. I even managed to learn something.  A couple of years ago I visited another mental health facility several times a week because a friend was housed there while waiting for a bed in a nursing home. She wasn't one of the patients as such. There was simply no other bed available. She found the experience "interesting but very disturbing". I went back later to visit someone who was mentally ill and needed support.
I can't say I like going into those places or that I feel comfortable there.  I don't know enough. I am frightened I might upset someone unintentionally. It is almost impossible to even begin to understand how they might be feeling or how they see the world. What's "normal" anyway?
What I noted in all those places was the lack of visitors. There never seemed to be other people visiting. Perhaps I was just there at the wrong times? I don't know. I think it is more likely that people avoid visiting. 
And that is probably why bad things happen in such places. On that cold winter morning we saw an old man wandering around in the courtyard in nothing more than a singlet and underpants. He didn't even have anything on his feet. He obviously had no idea where he was or what he was doing.
When I mentioned this to a passing staff member the matter was met with what is best described as impatient indifference. They would get around to doing something about him when they had time. At the same time there were staff in the staff room who appeared to be doing no more than chatting to each other.
I wrote a letter to the Minister.  I was verbally advised that the matter would be investigated. It never was. I am sure of that. I suspect the letter was shredded. It was all too hard. Nobody wanted to know.
Eventually things became so bad that a member of staff did blow the whistle - and blew it long and hard. Something had to be done. 
The investigation brought about yesterday's report.
But it has only been an investigation of part of the problem. There are clearly things missing and information which was not given to the investigator. My letter certainly never got to him or I might have been called to give evidence. 
The Ministers (there have been more than one) have escaped blame for maladministration on the grounds that they were not informed. I don't know how that conclusion was reached. I can only assume that letters like mine (and there must have been more than one) never reached the Minister of the day.
Mental health is an immensely complex area. It requires knowledge and the dedication and commitment of those working in it. It doesn't happen...and these are some of the most vulnerable people in society.