Alcohol and Other Drugs

Greens spokesperson for Mental Health and Alcohol and Other Drugs Hon Alison Xamon MLC has today called on the Minister for Mental Health to urgently address a shortage of addiction specialist psychiatrists and physicians in the Western Australian health system.

Answers to questions Ms Xamon asked in Parliament have revealed that there are only 2 registered specialist addiction psychiatrists and 14 registered specialist addiction physicians employed in the entire Western Australian health system.

Greens spokesperson for Mental Health Hon Alison Xamon MLC has expressed dismay about the progress made toward achieving the targets set out in the 10 year mental health and alcohol and other drug services plan following today’s release of updated service modelling for the Plan.

“While I am pleased to see the updated modelling finally released, the draft Plan Update 2018 confirms what I have been saying for a long time – we are falling way short of the targets needed to achieve a complete rebalancing of the system,” Ms Xamon said.