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Mental Health Policy in South Australia: A Job Half Done
Author(s) -
Barber James
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.1985.tb00792.x
Subject(s) - centralisation , project commissioning , decentralization , mental health , publishing , public administration , social policy , civil liberties , political science , psychiatry , economic growth , medicine , law , economics , politics
Though the emphasis in South Australian mental health policy on deinstitutionalisation is based on sound principles of civil liberties and psychiatric treatment, serious social problems have followed in the wake of the new initiatives. This paper attributes many of the problems to the simultaneous pursuit of deinstitutionalisation and centralisation of resources within psychiatric hospitals. It is argued that the policy of deinstitutionalisation demands a commensurate decentralisation of resources to enable the development of community‐based residential and nonresidential alternatives to hospital.