Australians with mental illness have to choose between paying bills and healthcare

New research released by national mental health charity SANE Australia has found people with a mental illness are often forced to choose between medical treatment and putting food on the table.

The key findings of SANE Research Bulletin 9: Money and Mental Illness are:

• 38% of respondents have an annual income of less than AU$20,000
• 54% of respondents often could not afford treatments recommended by their doctor
• 96% had to choose at times between healthcare and essentials such as food.

SANE’s Executive Director Barbara Hocking says of the findings, "We now have the appalling situation where people with mental illness are being forced to make really unenviable decisions.

"Why should people who are trying to cope with the distressing symptoms of mental illness also have to go without food to pay for essential treatment, or remain unwell to put food on the table?"

SANE Research Bulletin 9: Money and Mental Illness also found that 17% spend more than $100 a month on medication and yet 32% were not registered with Medicare Safety Net. Debt is a major issue with more than half of respondents (53%) relying on credit cards to help ends meet, and 29% having been contacted by debt collectors in the past year.

"A group of people with mental illness are now at risk of becoming an underclass. Government urgently needs to do more to ensure that all people with mental illness are able to access the treatments they need," says Ms Hocking, "whether this is for psychiatric care or for the other chronic conditions we know they experience at much higher rates than the general population.

"Healthcare must be made affordable for people on low incomes via targeted financial support. SANE also encourages the government to support financial literacy and counselling programs for people with a mental illness and register all people on low incomes with Medicare Safety Net as a matter of course."

The survey also found one-third of respondents (31%) were smokers – compared with 18% of the general population. Almost half of smokers said they could not afford nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), the most effective aid to quitting, even though they wanted to stop smoking.

Ms Hocking says, "Now more than ever, with the proposed increased costs of cigarettes, subsidised NRT is urgently needed for people with mental illness as well as other disadvantaged, low income groups to enable them to live a healthier, smoke-free life."

(Source: SANE: July 2009)