The shocking state of our mental hospitals

CONDITIONS in some public mental hospitals remain Victorian, while private psychiatric facilities are state-of-the-art, a damning report by the Government’s mental health watchdog has found.

The stark inequalities between public and private services are among numerous items which come in for sharp criticism in the latest report by Inspector of Mental Hospitals, Professor Dermot Walsh.

The report, published yesterday, also concluded that 11 hospitals provided "unacceptable" levels of care, while there was a virtual absence of in-patient residential care for children and adolescents.