The mother of a woman killed in Sydney’s Bondi Junction stabbings is pleading for national action to address disparities in mental health care across Australia. Elizabeth Young says some of her family have struggled to find professional help to deal with the trauma of their loss.
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00:00Jade Young's murder has broken families in two states.
00:06She was a loved wife, a most loved mother of two young girls.
00:10She was our treasured daughter and PJ's beloved JJ, Chinese for big sister.
00:16Now a plea from her mother.
00:18I beg you, as the voice of three shattered households, please actually do something about
00:24the discrepancies, the disparities, the inconsistencies.
00:28Elizabeth Young lives in New South Wales and says support came within hours of Jade's death.
00:33But she says it was six weeks before her son, PJ, in Tasmania could speak to a psychologist.
00:39Finding help for her grandchildren, she says, was even harder.
00:42They were told there was one child psychologist but the books were closed.
00:46The Tasmanian mental health hotline they were told to use rang out.
00:51The Tasmanian government says it's employing more mental health workers than ever before.
00:56I do think that there are gaps between Commonwealth systems and state systems.
01:00I think that when we're looking at the increasing distress in society, that we need a whole
01:04of government approach.
01:06Next month, mental health ministers from every state and territory will meet with the Commonwealth
01:10to discuss joint action on mental health reform, including what can be done to reduce the likelihood
01:15of events like Bondi.
01:17The attacker was a Queenslander who'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia more than 20
01:22years earlier.
01:23Clinicians want to be able to offer services to patients in a timely manner, in times of
01:29crisis, but also to prevent crises from happening.
01:33We can get in early and if we can address the needs as they're becoming more complex,
01:37then we have a chance of minimising the sorts of tragedies that we have seen in Bondi Junction.
01:43A tragedy that's left a long trail of trauma.