Reported in The Age 19/2/04.

Large numbers of mentally ill patients are committing suicide after receiving inadequate care in Victoria's public hospitals according to a damning letter to the State Government by a senior hospital administrator.

Director of emergency services at Maroondah Hospital, Peter Archer, wrote that at his hospital alone, 13 patients had committed suicide in 13 months. This included a "High risk " patient who hanged himself on the day the letter was written. "It is clear to all who wort at Maroondah that we are not able to offer these people the level of support they need." Dr Archer wrote.

The letter - emailed on Monday to state Health Minister Bronwyn Pike, with a copy to Premier Steve Bracks - came to light yesterday after being leaked to ABC Radio.

Dr Archer said emergency departments at ehe stat's public hospitals had become "defacto holding bays", with 25 to 40 percent of his hospital's trolleys occupied by mental health patients every weekend.

Dr Archer who has been physically assaulted by "desperate families", also wrote of a mentally ill patient who went home and killed his partner after he was assessed and discharged from the emergency department, "despite his threats to do this".

"Our staff are also at risk, with frequent assaults and multiple instances of verbal abuse" he wrote.

Dr Archer could not be contacted yesterday, but Penny Speed, clinical director of psychiatry for the Outer East Area Mental Health Service, which includes Maroondah Hospital, said these were daily occurrences of patients remaining in the emergency department until an appropriate bed could be found.

Ms Pike conceded to the Age that the rate of suicide among discharged mentally ill patients was "indicative of the pressure this system is under". She attributed part of the problem to the decline in bulk-billing, and more mentally ill patients.

Ms Pike said the issue had to be tackled at federal level as well. She said it was "absolutely appropriate" that mentally ill patients were admitted into the general hospital system.

But Opposition health spokesman David Davis said the Government had closed 600 hospital beds during the past two years, and a portion of that could have been used for mentally ill patients.

"This indicates mismanagement of the most extraordinary kind," he said. Acting executive director of mental health charity SANE paul Morgan, said the six months after a patient was discharged from hospital were their most vulnerable.

"The resources are not there to support them and they commit suicide at 12 times the rate of the general population" he said "This is going to keep happening unless we put serious money into mental health services."

The Director of mental health service Orygen Youth Health Patrick McGorry, said Australia spent only 7 per cent of its health budget on mental health, compared with up to 15 per cent in other developed countries.

Author Carol Nader, The Age, Melbourne.