AMA Tasmania calls for specialist perinatal mental health care to be guaranteed
AMA Tasmania is calling on the Tasmanian Government to guarantee that women experiencing serious and complex perinatal mental illness will continue to have access to dedicated specialist psychiatric care alongside their babies as changes to the state’s mother and baby services proceed.
AMA Tasmania President Dr Meg Creely said the development of the new Intensive Residential Parenting Unit (IRPU) at St Johns Park was an important investment in services for Tasmanian families, but it must be in addition to, not instead of, specialist psychiatric care for mothers experiencing significant mental illness.
“The new IRPU has the potential to provide excellent support for many parents and babies, but we need to be very clear that this is different to specialist perinatal and infant mental health treatment for those with the most complex and severe needs” Dr Creely said.
“Women experiencing serious conditions such as postpartum psychosis, bipolar disorder and other complex psychiatric illnesses require specialist assessment, treatment and monitoring.
“These illnesses can deteriorate rapidly and need to be managed under the care of specialist perinatal and infant mental health clinicians. This is not an optional extra – it is a fundamental patient safety issue.”
Dr Creely said maintaining the relationship between a mother and her baby wherever it was clinically safe to do so was also extremely important.
“For some women experiencing severe mental illness following childbirth, separating them from their baby may be necessary for safety. But this is rarely the case, and wherever mother and baby can safely remain together, no matter how severe the mental illness may be, our health system should be designed to support parent-infant attachment, safeguard infant development, and reduce trauma of separation.
“That requires more than an appropriate building. It requires the specialist workforce, clinical governance and treatment pathways to provide genuinely integrated care for both mother and infant.”
AMA Tasmania said the Government should clearly outline how specialist perinatal mental health care would be delivered when the current Royal Hobart Hospital Mother Baby Unit closes, because the two units are not like for like.
“We cannot afford to have a gap in specialist mother and baby mental health care between the closure of the current MBU and the opening of any replacement service further down the track,” Dr Creely said.
“If the IRPU will replace the RHH MBU to be the only dedicated mother and baby facility, the Government must explain how women with severe and complex mental illness will continue to receive the specialist psychiatric care they need while remaining with their babies where clinically appropriate.”
This should include sufficient permanent specialist perinatal and infant mental health staffing, clear arrangements for psychiatric assessment and treatment within or alongside the IRPU, and a dedicated pathway for women whose needs are beyond the scope of a parenting service but who do not require separation from their infant and admission to a general psychiatric ward.
AMA Tasmania also believes there is merit in examining expanded specialist mental health community care, by increasing the community perinatal workforce to provide outreach support and/or Hospital in the Home models as part of a statewide service, particularly where these can safely provide intensive treatment while keeping families together.>>>ENDS
