"Currently mental illness accounts for some 13.3% of the disease population of Australia, yet a mere 7.8% of the overall health budget is expended on mental health."

What about cancer patients vs flu patients? This sounds more like a plug for the psychologists to tap deeper into medicare.

A friend of a friend has been in the funny-farm for some years. Those of us who have known the victim for yonks and have some understanding of the events leading up to her confinement believe she could be 'sorted out' with proper professional one-on-one care, however the present system simply doesn't have the resources. As a result, she is destined to spend the remainder of her natural pilled up to the eyeballs and surrounded by others in a similar plight. Some may well be hopelessly ga-ga (beam me up Scotty) but others are probably 'salvageable'. Sad.

Come on mate, I'll bet if we got rid of three quarters of the psychologist, & all the rest of the practitioners, the number of suffers would drop by a similar number.

Most of us are crazy, but luckily we have not met a psychologist who has told us so.

Has anyone ever met a psychologist who was not at least half crazy? Cut the budget & cut the problem is the best way.

This smacks of special pleading along the lines of the "don't club the poor baby seals" variety. We all know that mental illness is a sad state, so our author here has painted a picture that suggests we are being cruel not to cough up more money.

"I want to suggest that we need to have a greater public commitment to mental health, in order to rectify the above imbalance"

What "imbalance", pray?

By what financial logic can you arrive at a dollar equivalence, one that says a dollar spent on, say, emphysema, has more/less/the same value as a dollar spent on treating depression? It is a false premise, and an exploitative one at that.

Where is the evidence that the 7.8% of the health budget that is directed at mental illness is too little/too much/being spent optimally? Surely, before holding out one's hand for more of the public's money, a case needs to be made on facts, rather than through an unseemly exploitation of our natural compassion?

Hasbeen - Has anyone ever met a psychologist who was not at least half crazy?

That mob are sane compared with psychiatrists ... you may be right though one lot are half-crazy whereas the other ones are positively round the bend

Pericles

I'd like to see more focus on all hitherto neglected medical disciplines, including mental health. In order to do so we need to demand our elected officials AKA bloodsucking parasites undertake a major cleaning up of the acts under their individual control. Its perfectly obvious that far more taxpayer money is squandered on crap than is spent wisely, as is exemplified by the ongoing health payroll saga in Queensland. Who knows what its cost, last I heard the total was out past the limits of the known universe and still accelerating.

I'm particularly incensed with the money squandered on aliens, surely the first responsibility of those we elect is to citizens / taxpayers ?? If perchance there is some left over, or even if EXCEPTIONALLY needy cases arise, then maybe we could consider the odd once-off exception but most definitely not the wanton chucking our money around like a whole navy of drunken sailors as is the wont of the red-headed witch, the Greens & the RAbbott.