GOULBURN Valley Health, Alfred Health and Ramsay Health Care have partnered to deliver the first of its kind Specialist Women’s Mental Health Service; an expert hybrid of private and public hospital care.
The first milestone in the establishment of a unique Victorian women’s mental health service has been reached with the opening of in-patient and at-home support for women and those who identify as women in the Goulburn Valley area.
The central hub will be based in Melbourne, and the Goulburn Valley in-home and in-patient care delivered at Ramsay’s Shepparton Private Hospital will provide five new beds in our region.
GV Health Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Rajlaxmi Khopade spoke of how women are approximately twice as likely to suffer from mental illness when compared to men, which is why specialised care is required.
“The partnership also allows for providing consultation and support to build capacity of local services to provide world-leading care,” said Dr Khopade.
“We recognise that women face unique challenges including high rates of sexual and physical abuse, single parenthood and poverty, which along with other social and economic inequities, act as barriers to accessing mental healthcare,” Dr Khopade said.
“Working as a mental health practitioner in the Goulburn Valley region for over a decade, I have witnessed these issues first-hand among the women I treat. I am immensely proud to be part of the launch of a new service that will better support women in our community on their journey to recovery.”
In the coming months, the Alfred Health and Ramsay Health Care teams will commence delivery of psychiatric care to women in the metropolitan Melbourne community, with the service’s hub to open in the second half of 2023.
The development of the new service is driven by recommendations from the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, which heard that a range of gender-based safety issues significantly impacted women’s experiences of in-patient mental health care.
