Queensland Health is scrapping its blanket locked ward policy on all public acute mental health care units.
Key points:
- The state will move to a discretionary policy from July 1, 2024
- It means staff can choose whether or not to lock doors
- Queensland Health has had a locked ward policy since 2013
The locked ward policy, which came in under Campbell Newman in 2013, requires all entry and exit doors on adult public acute mental health inpatient units in public hospitals to be locked, regardless of whether patients are there voluntarily.
Queensland is currently the only state with a blanket locked ward policy.
Queensland Health told the ABC inpatient units would move to discretionary locking on mental health wards from July 1, 2024.
This means staff can choose whether to lock or unlock a ward.
Queensland’s chief psychiatrist has been considering the policy change for more than a year.
Brett Emmerson was the executive director of Metro North Mental Health at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Mental Health Centre both before and after the locked ward policy came in.
Mr Emmerson, who is the Queensland chair of the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, said it had reduced the number of patients absconding — but only by about one a fortnight.
“The idea that the politicians had, that by locking the doors we would have nobody absconding, that’s just not the case,” he said.
Mr Emmerson said the new policy would reduce tension on the wards and make life easier for staff.
“There is nothing like being able to go for a walk or go down to the canteen,” he said.
“Anything that will help reduce the level of agitation in those wards, such as having the ability to open the doors, is a good thing.”
Word of warning
Alex’s* son died from suicide after he absconded from a Queensland mental health ward in 2012.
It was the third time it had happened, and the second time he had tried to take his own life.
Alex believes a locked ward policy — which came in just a year after his son died — could have saved him.
“People with bipolar conditions act on impulse, and those impulses can’t be predicted,” he said.
“He was there to receive treatment, to try to defuse this terrible condition, and to try to prevent anything like that from ever happening.”
He has a word of warning to Queensland Health in the lead up to the implementation of the discretionary policy.
“Please be careful, please be ultra, ultra careful in how you implement this policy, because it could have catastrophic results for families, and for the sufferers themselves,” Alex said.
He said issues lie in staffing shortages, and whether they will have the resources to accurately assess each individual ward.
“Are the patients supervised? Who is looking after them? What if the supervision failed?” Alex said.
‘Human rights development’
John Chesterman, the state’s public advocate, said the change was a “significant human rights development for Queensland”.
“[The policy] affects people’s self-esteem, and imbues in people a sense of their seclusion, separation from the rest of society, and also contributes to the stigma already associated with mental illness,” Mr Chesterman said.
Mr Chesterman and Mr Emmerson said the move was a sign Queensland’s mental health care system was catching up to other states.
The decision has been welcomed by the Queensland Mental Health Commission.
“This is essential for people’s longer-term recovery and wellbeing, and reflects a contemporary, human rights-based mental health system,” a spokesperson said.
*Alex’s name has been changed to protect his and his family’s privacy.
