Mental health: everyone's business: Mental health is everyone's business the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses and the Wesley Mission affirmed last month. In the midst of a burgeoning demand for mental health services, the lack of funds allocated to mental health as part of a $7.3 billion health package in the federal budget does not add up.(Cover story)

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Fay Jackson takes twenty-three tablets daily for severe bipolar disorder and chronic physical illness, she has had bowel and uterine cancer. With one in four Australians with a mental health illness, she is normal, she says. "One in four people have blonde hair and that is normal. One in four people have blue eyes and that is normal. It is normal to have a mental illness; it is just a different kind of normal." Talking at the recent Australian Practice Nurses Association conference in Queensland last month, Fay who is Vision in Mind's CEO, says the stigma around mental illness is crippling.

The Keeping minds well: mental health is everybody's business report released last month by the Wesley Mission shows less than half the population is comfortable around people who suffer with depression. Yet more than half the community will personally experience a mental health problem during their lives and mental illness among one third of young people goes undiagnosed.

Wesley Mission's Reverend Dr Keith Garner says stigma prevents people from feeling free enough to access help and access it early. "One of the reasons is the stigma, the uninformed community attitudes which make sufferers ashamed to admit the way they feel."

People feel an overwhelming sense of guilt, says Kate Schlict from SA Flinders University's Prevention, Promotion and Primary Health Care Unit. "People outwardly look like they are coping and we do not see it until they fall apart."

Mental health vs mental illness

Mental ill health is the leading killer of Australians under 45 and the leading cause of disability in Australia. About 20% of Australians meet the criteria for a mental health problem or disorder, yet only 38% of people seek professional help.

A program trailed by beyond blue in Victoria and South Australia to train practice nurses to screen every patient who has diabetes or coronary heart disease for depression has seen positive feedback. "Practice nurses have been telling us 'we didn't know this person was depressed'," says Kate Schlict. "Feedback from patients has been, 'thank goodness I have someone to talk to'."

Australian College of Mental Health Nurses (ACMHN) chief executive officer Kim Ryan says there is a lot of anxiety, stress, cognitive problems and depression in the community. "Not all mental health problems are a mental illness. A lot of people are …