Local healthcare advocates have used their successful campaign to win a new Banksia Mental Health Unit to argue for a local drug rehabilitation centre.
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Mental Health Minister Bronwyn Taylor yesterday announced a new 33-bed mental health facility would be built on a 'greenfield site', leaving the old building free.
Di Wyatt, who campaigned with the Tamworth Mental Health Carers' Support Group for the Banksia upgrade, said it would be a good place to set up a rehab service.
"I think it's a good opportunity because there's a building there that can be used, so why not," she said.
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Locals have long lobbied for a local residential rehabilitation service, with the nearest overnight services hours away and often overbooked. Existing local institutions don't offer residential services, which means many addicted locals end up heading to private clinics on the coast or even Sydney, she said.
Ms Wyatt said a rehab centre was the next ask for the carers group, because the two institutions would help complement each other.
"That would free up rooms in the mental health unit.
"If there's people with drug and alcohol problems and they're taking up space in the mental health unit then that cuts out on other people who've got mental health problems as well."
Tamworth Aboriginal Medical Service CEO Robert Berwick agreed there is a dire need for a residential drug withdrawal service in Tamworth.
He said there are "more than dozens" of people in the Tamworth region who need drug rehabilitation services right now. Many of them are currently just slipping through the cracks, he said.
The service shortage can create a revolving door between short-term treatments by mental health services.
"So you can have somebody withdraw [from care], they go back into the same location, with the same house, same friends and the same networks and they can relapse, because their network is part of that behaviour base."
He said the service would help reduce incarceration rates by giving local courts an alternative to sending people to jail for offences committed out of addiction.
"It would help more than hundreds of people because if you look at a family of four people, the impact on children, partners, parents, etc.
"It would have a massive social and community-based outcome."
On Monday Mental Health Services clinical director James Zurek said he hoped the Banksia upgrade would mean substance abuse would continue to be well resourced in Tamworth.
"Virtually 75 [or] 80 per cent of our patients admitted have a co-morbid drug and alcohol problem, [or] substance use disorder," he said.
Tamworth Mental Health Carers' Support Group has been lobbying for a new Banksia Mental Health Unit since in 2018. They collected over 13,000 signatures petitioning government for the upgrade.
The community co-design process for the new institution is expected to be a slow one.