An Open Letter to The Hon Anthony Albanese MP: Mental Health Needs Action NOW.

11 July 2024

Attn: Anthony Albanese ; Emma McBride

Trigger Warning: This letter mentions suicide

Mr Albanese,

I wrote these words on the night of the 23rd of June of this year: the night that my husband took his own life. I have sat with it for over two weeks before I decided to share it publicly, so this letter is coming from a place of careful consideration - as well as one of heartbreak. I implore you to read this letter about the challenges that vulnerable people are facing under your leadership and find a way to address the issues as a matter of national urgency.

_________________

As I sit here on my childhood bed and look over to the clock, I read 3.19am, and wonder if sleep will ever return to me; If I will ever be able to close my eyes; if I will ever know restful slumber again. It’s funny what one thinks about as the clock ticks through the early morning, before even the birds have woken to begin their day.

Sitting up in my childhood bed, the familiar golden scrolly decoration on the headboard attempts to bring me the comfort of familiarity on what surely must be the worst night of my life. Glancing to my left I watch over my children sleeping fitfully, stirring at every unfamiliar sound and I wonder at how one’s life can change so irrevocably in a microsecond.

For tonight, my husband suddenly and unexpectedly died. My one and only, my best friend, my co-parent, my crisis manager, my partner in all arguments from politics to international law… my person… surrendered to his battle with mental health.

And I am heartbroken.

Ren was so many things to all of us. He was a Veteran, having served in the RAAF for six years, a music lover, a "Techno Bunny" (to his high school friends), an incredibly intelligent self-taught brainiac who literally read Plato because he "wanted to know what the fuss was all about," a knight in shining armour in a crisis, a shoulder to cry on, a human hug, a bloody good cook (he taught me everything I know), a writer, an artist, a counsellor to his friends and neighbours, a support to his inner circle, and a fascinating conversationalist.

Ren was also battling significant overwhelming trauma, mental health issues and diabetes that had landed him in hospital just a month before he died. He suffered diabetic ketoacidosis due to pneumonia mixing with Metformin and his sugars had been out of control ever since.

We couldn't get him in to see his GP until July 12, his endocrinologist couldn't see him before the end of August, and he didn't want to return to hospital due to being retraumatised during his last visit as a result of poor medical care by the ENT specialist who failed to even show up.

We were abandonned by the healthcare system to try and manage it all ourselves at home and we were failing. Ren paid the ultimate price.

My beautiful sister-in-law reminded me tonight that one of the best ways we can deal with trauma, with loss, with grief, is to write about it. So, I have put aside my desire to wallow under the doona and pretend the world doesn’t exist to put pen to paper. But it's more than that. I need to do something. His death cannot have been in vain.

Over the years, I have shared some of my most intimate life experiences with the Australian public through the column that I write for The Canberra Times. My purpose in doing so is not to garner sympathy or peddle a pity party for one. It is, and always has been, shared under the belief that perhaps if I am going through this, then someone else out there may be going through it too, and maybe, just maybe, knowing they aren’t alone will make a difference to them. To me. To us.

So I have turned to the familiar and comforting process of looking at the broader picture of what has happened to us, to learn more about the experiences of others and to help me to process what happened.

I recognise that our healthcare/mental health systems in Australia are marketed to voters as world-leading because of Medicare, but I have learned that there is a large group of vulnerable Australians who are falling through the cracks in the system: we need you to see us and close the gaps we are slipping through into oblivion.

I was staggered to learn that almost nine Australians take their own lives every day.

NINE AUSTRALIANS. EVERY. DAY.

That’s more than double the road toll.

That makes eight other wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, care-givers, loved ones, friends, who are no doubt lying awake at this very moment trying to make sense of the heartbreak alongside me.

In our experience, we have found that the health system is a gated community.

Wait times in regional Australia for psychological support on an ongoing basis is untenable, with wait times of 3 months to over 6 months to see a psychologist being common, and parts of regional Australia suffering wait times of over 12 months. According to the Australian Psychological Society, these wait times are getting worse with a shocking one in three psychologists “unable to see new clients due to overwhelming demand.”

This is of course assuming you can afford the session in the first place.

The APS National Schedule of Recommended Fees for 2023-2024 has listed a standard 40-60 minute consultation fee at $300. The Medicare rebate on a Mental Health Plan (if you’re eligible for that) is just $137.05/session for a Clinical Psychologist. The full consultation fee must be paid by the client in full and then Medicare will refund you the applicable amount. This means that if you don’t have the $300 in your account to pay for your session, you can’t receive the services.

Despite the growing number of deaths by suicide in Australia, the Mental Health Plan was rolled back by half, returning to the pre-Covid provisions of just ten rebated sessions per year, per person in January 2023. That's not even one per month.

Furthermore, increasing numbers of people (19.3 percent in 2022-2023, up from 16.7 per cent in 2021-22) are delaying seeing health professionals for mental health reasons due to the cost. When you consider lower socioeconomic areas experience deaths by suicide twice as much as other areas, you can’t ignore the correlation between accessibility to healthcare, cost of healthcare and the tragic loss of nine lives per day.

Mr Albanese, you’re too late to save my husband; to save my children the burden and heartache of losing their father.

But there are nine more lives that will end today unless you do something tangible about it. I implore you to pay attention.

We need your help.

And right here, I am asking you directly to stop letting our vulnerable Australians die because they can't access quality healthcare or mental health support, leaving their families to pick up the broken pieces.

You have the power, Mr Albanese. Use it for something good and fix this. Please.

Yours sincerely,

Zo? Wundenberg

[email protected]