The number of patients escaping from mental health facility Cumberland Hospital has climbed to almost three times the New South Wales average.
Data from NSW Health shows one patient absconds every 1,333 days, compared to the state's average of 4,348 days.
A nurse who works at the facility says they have been "requesting extra resources, extra pay, extra people on the floor".
Posted by nath1234
11 Comments
One patient every 3.6 years doesn’t seem like a lot where mentally ill patients in a non-prison setting are concerned. But, yes, they are understaffed from the top down. Here’s a story from January 2025: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/21/wards-in-nsws-largest-psychiatric-hospital-close-as-mass-resignations-begin
There is not a mental health ward in NSW that is appropriately staffed. We shouldn’t be surprised that people want to get out of facilities where they can’t have their phones, there are no activities on weekends, there is no access to therapy, the food sucks, the beds are horrid, the list goes on and on.
The system is completely broken. Beyond escapees, people fall through the cracks and be up murdering people. Not just one level either. Several potential catch points all failed.
I commented on another post but I spent some time at Cumberland (it’s an awful awful place, shout out to the psychiatrist who asked me if I had it coming due to the way I was dressed when I disclosed my rape).
The patients openly discuss how many times they’ve managed to escape undetected. Some would just meet up to smoke with their friends. Patients seemed to just be walking in and out of the place.
Minns refused to negotiate with unions to keep nursing staff and psychiatrists.
Add to that that these workers have been priced out of Sydney.
Not surprised no one in NSW wants to work under Minns and Rose Jackson.
My sibling walked straight out of a mental ward (wasn’t meant to be able to) and was dead within an hour.
This is such a scary situation, also for the public. Do they usually inform the public about a patient escape cause I don’t remember reading anything before the attack?
The ABC has whiffed those numbers.
Absconding is recorded as a “rate” per 1000 bed days.
It’s not directly possible to simply convert the number to an average like that because when you speak about “bed days” it’s per person per occupied bed.
So a ward with 1 person overnight is 1 bed day. And a ward with 34 people over night is 34 bed days.
It’s the only mathematical way to record a KPI that accounts for fluctuations in patient numbers.
Source: me because I have previously collated said data and submitted it to the Ministry of Health.
That data isnt being reported accurately. Its higher than this. That data is bs.
4000 days? Its an uncommon occurrence, but not every 15 years. Someone’s absolutely jimmyd the numbers.
I reckon its because they don’t actually track it. Then probably had to quickly tell the minister and needed to save face.
In other words, NSW Labor’s neoliberal extremism have lead to the deaths of at least 3 people and it could happen again.
NSW govt has underfunded for so long, it’s starting to show repercussions in real time, with literal blood on its hands. And yet they still don’t act