Services de santé mentale en Australie Mental health services in Australia

Résumé

Depuis 1992, quatre stratégies en santé mentale se sont succédé avec pour buts de promouvoir la santé mentale, d’augmenter la qualité des services et de forger une approche cohérente concernant la réforme du système de santé mentale dans tous les États et territoires australiens. Ces cycles systématiques de planification ont permis le passage d’un système dominé par les hôpitaux psychiatriques à un système de services dans la communauté. Les budgets en santé mentale se sont accrus, mais se sont réduits avant de s’accroître avec un ambitieux programme d’accès équitable à la psychothérapie, fondé sur un paiement à l’acte des psychologues après une référence des médecins de famille. Plus récemment, le développement de services pour les jeunes psychotiques a soulevé des craintes d’abandon des patients plus âgés et de réduction des budgets, d’autant plus qu’avec un excès de mortalité de ces derniers, la discrimination des services n’est pas résolue. Il demeure une disparité pour les peuples autochtones. La création récente d’une commission de la santé mentale marque un rôle accru de la participation des usagers et familles, de même qu’une surveillance indépendante continue de la performance du système de santé mentale australien.

Mots-clés :

• politiques des services de santé mentale,
• implantation,
• gouvernance,
• économique,
• troubles mentaux graves,
• troubles mentaux courants

Abstract

Canada is 1.5 times the size of Australia. Australia’s population of 20 million is located principally on the east coast. Like Canada, the Australia has a federal system of Government with 5 States and two territories. Each State and territory has its own legislation on mental health. The federal (Commonwealth) Government is responsible for health care planning. In addition, the federal Government subsidizes an insurance program (Medicare) that covers visits to specialists and family physicians, while provincial governments are involved in the provision of hospital care and community mental health services. The Commonwealth government also subsidises the cost of medication through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. These funds are supplemented by private health insurance. Mental health costs account for 6.5 per cent of all health care costs. Primary care treats the majority of common psychological disorders such as anxiety or depression, while specialist mental health services concentrate on those with severe mental illness. There have been 4 national mental health plans since 1992 with the long term aims of promoting mental health, increasing the quality and responsiveness of services, and creating a consistent approach to mental health service system reform among Australian states and territories. These systematic cycles of planning have first allowed a shift from psychiatric hospitals to community services, from reliance on psychiatric hospitals as pivotal to psychiatric care system. Community care budgets have increased, but overall have decreased with money not following patients; but recent deployment of federally funded through Medicare access to psychotherapy by psychologists for common mental disorders in primary care have increased overall budget. Concerns remain that shift to youth first onset psychosis clinics may come from older long-term psychotic patients, a form of discrimination whilst evidence amount of excess mortality by cardio-vascular diseases and cancers, and due to poverty, poor health prevention and primary health care for these patients. From a system perspective, Australia has been inspired by Canada and created in 2012 its own mental health commission with a similar leading role for patients and families, aboriginal people representatives, but also a surveillance of the system with its own yearly report, like the Quebec Health Commissioner 2012 mental health system performance report.

Keywords:

• mental health services policies,
• implementation,
• governance,
• economics,
• severe mental illness,
• common mental disorders