6 beds. 60,000 people. 596 kilometres to Perth.
The Goldfields needs a real mental health facility.
The evidence says it should be voluntary, open-door, and community-led.
We are external advocates for mental health and suicide prevention in the Goldfields. We believe every person in crisis deserves immediate, local, compassionate support — and we believe that support must never come at the cost of a person's autonomy or dignity.
This isn't ideology. Everything on this page is sourced from peer-reviewed research, government data, and real-world programs that have been running for decades. Every claim has a citation. Every number is checkable. We got it wrong? Show us. We'll fix it.
The Goldfields-Esperance region covers an area larger than France. It has some of the highest suicide and violence rates in Australia. For acute mental health care, there are six beds.
When those 6 beds are full — and they are often full — a person in mental health crisis in Kalgoorlie is flown 596 kilometres to Perth by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. They are separated from their family, their community, their country. For Aboriginal people, this separation can be the opposite of healing.
The region's Aboriginal communities experience suicide at nearly three times the non-Indigenous rate. Aboriginal young people aged 10–19 die by suicide at 4.5 times the rate of other Australians. Self-harm hospitalisation rates for Aboriginal girls aged 15–19 aremore than 10 times the national average.
Meanwhile, 90% of psychiatrists and trainees say workforce shortages are harming patient care. 85% of full-time psychiatrists work in metropolitan areas. The Goldfields relies on telehealth and fly-in-fly-out clinicians — a model the WAAMH's Going the Distance report (2023) called "unsustainable" and "ineffective."
Kalgoorlie needs more mental health support. Urgently. But we do not believe the answer is to lock people up.
We advocate for a facility that is voluntary, open-door, and community-led — because that is what the evidence supports.
This is not a fringe position. It is the position of the World Health Organization, the Productivity Commission, and forty-five years of real-world data from programs operating on three continents. Involuntary detention is not just ethically fraught — the research shows it produces worse outcomes on the metrics that matter most: suicide, recovery, readmission, employment, and cost.
The assumption that locking someone in a ward keeps them safe is not supported by the evidence. These are large-scale studies published in the world's leading medical journals.
These are not theoretical proposals. They are real programs, running right now, with decades of outcome data. They work better than locked wards on every measure.
Treatment begins within 24 hours in the person's home, with their chosen support network present. Medication is a last resort, not a first response. Only 33% needed neuroleptic drugs. Operating since the 1980s.
Italy closed every psychiatric hospital in 1978. In Trieste, they were replaced by 4 community mental health centres, open 24/7, each with 6 beds and ~26 staff. Open door. No restraint. The WHO designated it a Collaborating Centre. It has been running for 45 years.
Home-like environment, non-professional staff, emphasis on relationship and being-with. Founded by the chief of the US National Institute of Mental Health's schizophrenia division. Replicated in Switzerland with equivalent outcomes.
Entirely peer-led — run by people with lived experience of mental health crisis. Named after a living room because it's designed to feel like one. Guests report feeling 'more seen, heard, and respected than in conventional settings.'
A medic and a crisis worker respond to mental health calls instead of police. Saves ~$22.5 million annually in public safety and emergency costs. Running since 1989.
Run through the Geraldton Regional Aboriginal Medical Service. Culturally safe, community-controlled, with traditional healers alongside clinical staff. This is not from overseas — it's 600km up the coast from Kalgoorlie, and it works.
A purpose-built, voluntary, community-embedded mental health facility in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Based on models that have been proven to work — including one already operating in regional WA.
Following the Trieste model: open around the clock, open door, with beds for short stays and a team embedded in the community — not flying in from Perth. Trieste runs 4 of these for 240,000 people. Kalgoorlie needs one for 60,000.
Based on the Living Room model: staffed by people with lived experience, designed to feel like a home, not a hospital. A place you'd actually go to when things are bad. The data says 93% of people who walk into one don't need the emergency department.
Not an add-on. Not a pamphlet in a waiting room. A program designed and governed by Aboriginal communities in the Goldfields — with traditional healers, on-country programs, and yarning circles as core treatment, not afterthoughts. Maga Barndi in Geraldton proved this reduces admissions by 58%.
A clinician and a peer worker who go to people in crisis — at home, in the community, wherever they are. Not police. CAHOOTS has been doing this for 35 years. WA is already trialling co-response teams in metro areas. The Goldfields needs one.
The existing 10-bed Neami Step Up/Step Down facility in Kalgoorlie is a good start. The $9.9 million commitment to transition it to a public facility is welcome. But 10 voluntary short-stay beds and 6 inpatient beds for a region of 60,000 is not enough. Double it. Triple it. The cost of a bed is a fraction of the cost of a transfer to Perth.
The WAAMH report said it clearly: fly-in-fly-out mental health services are unsustainable and ineffective. Fund positions that live in Kalgoorlie. Grow the workforce locally — the Goldfields Aboriginal mental health team already does this with all-Aboriginal staff chosen for their community connections. Expand that model.
Mental ill-health costs Australia $200–220 billion per year. That's $550–600 million per day. The Productivity Commission found that every dollar invested in reform returns roughly five.
Each aeromedical transfer from Kalgoorlie to Perth costs approximately $19,000. That's the cost of one transfer. A community mental health worker's annual salary would cover a few dozen of them — and would prevent the crises that cause the transfers in the first place.
CAHOOTS saves $22.5 million per year for one city. The Living Room saved $550,000 in its first year at one facility. Peer respite centres produce fewer hospitalisations andlower Medicaid expenditures in the year following contact.
This is not a cost. It is a saving.
We believe in mental health support. We do not believe in locking people up.
This position is sometimes characterised as naive or dangerous. The evidence suggests the opposite is true. The Swedish Lancet study — 72,275 people over ten years — found that involuntary detention did not prevent suicide. The risk remained catastrophically elevated for years after discharge. Seclusion and restraint cause PTSD in a quarter to nearly half of patients.
Open-door wards are not less safe. They are, according to the Norwegian RCT, more safe — because they force staff to actually engage with patients rather than substituting a locked door for care.
Italy closed every asylum in 1978. Forty-five years later, Trieste — the city that did it first — is a WHO Collaborating Centre, with better outcomes than most locked-ward systems in the developed world.
The people of Kalgoorlie deserve support that treats them as people, not as risks to be contained. That is not naive. It is what the data demands.
The most powerful thing you can do right now is make sure more people see this. Share it with your local member, your community group, your family. The evidence is on this page — let it do the work.
The Goldfields sits in the state electorate of Kalgoorlie and the federal division of O'Connor. Write to your member. Reference the Productivity Commission report, the WAAMH Going the Distance findings, and the models that work. Ask why 60,000 people have 6 beds.
Neami National runs the Step Up/Step Down in Kalgoorlie.headspace Kalgoorlie serves young people.Hope Community Services provides advocacy.WAAMH advocates at the state level. These organisations are already doing the work — support them.
Lifeline: 13 11 14 (24/7)
13YARN: 13 92 76 (Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis line)
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800
Kalgoorlie headspace: (08) 9021 5599
Every claim on this page is backed by published data. If something is wrong, tell us. We will correct it publicly and immediately.