On a sunny Tuesday this week, a group of committed, hardworking, and community-minded locals gathered on site at the Hospital to beckon in construction on a piece of infrastructure that will improve the future of mental health care in Tamworth and the Northwest.
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Back in 2017, I first met with Don and Di Wyatt and the Tamworth Mental Health Carers Support Network to discuss mental health care in Tamworth and the first priority was the construction of a new mental health unit to replace the ageing Banksia unit.
So, with petition in hand, the group went about gathering 13,000 signatures from across our community and the northwest, petitioning the government to commit to building a new mental health unit.
That petition was successful with the former government committing $58 million dollars to build the new unit and include the beds we needed.
This includes the beds for adolescents that our community had been calling for, as well as a dedicated older person area, and an area for high acuity needs.
The new Tamworth Mental Health Unit will be a warm, welcoming, supportive, comfortable and safe space for patients from Tamworth and across the Northwest to receive treatment.
The start of construction on the 37-bed unit is an outstanding milestone and gets us one step closer to opening our brand-new mental health unit, which they're telling us will be in late 2025.
Full credit deservedly goes to the Tamworth Mental Health Carers Support Network for their outstanding advocacy on behalf of our community, and communities across the northwest.
I'm also continuing my push for the government's inquiry into community safety in regional and rural communities to come to our region and hear directly from those who have been impacted by crime.
The crime inquiry is an opportunity for the government to address the root cause of youth crime, but they need to listen and learn from our communities to better understand the issue.
That's why as soon as the government announced their inquiry, I wrote to the committee to let them know that it was our community's expectation that we are given an opportunity to be heard.
I have now heard back from the committee, and they have been very vague in their reply, refusing to commit to holding public hearings and site visits in regional and rural NSW.
The only way this inquiry can be effective is for members to travel to the regions and hear the stories from people who live in our regional communities.
Submissions can be made online now, but more needs to be done and I'm calling on the government to make a commitment and announce that they're touring the regions soon.
