Melbourne’s Indigenous people in grips of mental health crisis

It’s a wet Wednesday morning in Thomastown and all the patients Dr Peter Walsh has seen so far have severe mental health problems. One is suicidal, another is experiencing drug-induced psychosis.

• Miki Perkins
• The Age

It’s not unusual for most – sometimes all – of the patients in a day at this new Aboriginal health service to be in the midst of a full-blown, severe mental health crisis.

The clinic’s Melbourne-based patients experience trauma and mental health conditions more often and more severely than remote Indigenous Australians, Dr Walsh says.

“There’s a preconceived…

• Melbourne’s Indigenous people in…