Statement by ermha365 CEO Karenza Louis-Smith
Media Release
5 June 2025
ABC’s Four Corners episode “Emergency” about the New South Wales mental health system highlighted the extreme system failures that happen when there is under-investment in community-based mental health care.
People in deep psychological distress are being left in emergency departments for days, only to be sent home without the care they desperately need. Health workers are exhausted. Psychiatrists are walking away. And the “missing middle”— those too unwell for a GP but not sick enough for hospital — are being left behind.
Families desperate for help for their loved ones deserve a solution and governments cannot have more stories like these on their conscience while failing to act.
Lives have been lost and lives are on the line.
At ermha365 we see the consequences of this every day. We work with people whose mental health has deteriorated significantly. Not because they didn’t ask for help. The help simply wasn’t there. By the time they reach crisis point, it’s often too late for early, community-based intervention.
NSW is now facing the same reckoning Victoria did almost a decade ago. Victoria’s Royal Commission exposed a broken system and called for bold, structural reform: local, walk-in mental health hubs that connect people to care before crisis hits. It was a turning point.
We need to maintain the courage that saw this ground-breaking Royal Commission and the Victorian Government must not walk back, pause or delay these reforms.
It needs to continue to commit to these reforms, turbocharge them and build a blueprint for the nation. The rest of Australia is watching— and what happens next could shape the future of mental health care across the country.
Essential community-based mental health services like ermha365 are already delivering the kind of targeted, long-term support that makes a real difference. Programs like Commonwealth Psychosocial Support (CPS), Early Intervention Psychosocial Response (EIPSR), and step-up-step-down recovery and prevention care provide life-changing services for people experiencing mental ill-health.
These services are delivered in residential, telehealth, outreach, group and one-on-one settings. Vitally, these services take pressure off the already overburdened hospital system.
No government wants to be the focus of a Four Corners episode. And the solution is very simple.
To reduce pressure on emergency departments, retain skilled mental health workers and specialists and prevent future tragedies, our governments need to be serious and intentional about long-term investment in the community-based services that are already working.
This isn’t about starting from scratch—it’s about building on what we know works and doing it NOW.
Background
Founded in 1982, ermha365 provides a range of mental health and disability services in Victoria and Darwin designed to help people experiencing mental health challenges to thrive in their communities.
Media enquiries and CEO interview requests:
Emily Webb
Advocacy and External Communications Advisor
0422 691 103
e.webb@ermha.org