There has been a random stabbing death

in this state. It is a genuinely appalling incident which could have been avoided if people had listened to the perpetrator.

If the news reports are correct the man who stabbed a stranger to death and injured another had been released under the Mental Health Act and told to go about his daily life. Several times he presented to the major hospital in the city - only to be returned to the street. 

He kept telling them he felt he was going to harm someone. Eventually he took himself to the police. They did the only thing they could do. They took him to the Mental Health Unit run by the same major hospital in the city and he was kept there overnight. In the morning they released him. They had nowhere else to send him and the facility is only there for overnight stays.

Now, too late, there are questions being asked about all this. This man is being held in custody under the Mental Health Act. He will be held under that act for many years to come. 

My doctor nephew has spent time working in that emergency unit. He also worked in another mental health facility. It has since closed. He was one of the "whistle blowers" that closed the facility and he worries at the way in which nothing has replaced it. Something is needed. 

Not all mental health patients can be treated in the community. Too many people assume that it is a simple matter of people "taking their medication" and "having a positive attitude". Many people don't take their medication - particularly if the medication is making them feel "okay" or "fine" or "not quite right". Depression is about something far more serious and complex than "not having the right attitude". It is all very, very complex.

When I did my teacher training I did a placement in Ward K at the local residential mental health unit. The residents there were people with a history of violence. Another girl and I were supposed to provide "art therapy". I doubt we provided any sort of therapy at all but we were new faces in a life that must have been monotonous in the extreme. The residents were medicated to extreme levels but not for their own sake. It was to keep those working with them safe. Two young female teacher trainees should not even have been placed there without close professional supervision - and we had none at all. Nothing has improved over the years, if anything it is worse.

If this is how we treat our mental health patients then more of them will do harm to others. They will, like the man who has just killed an innocent woman, not be able to help themselves. We need to help them instead.