VIDEO: Is there a crisis in our mental health system?

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK, REPORTER:  Amuddin Sadar’s loved ones are walking a path of grief.

MASSOUD SADAR:  Everyone wish that we see at least one more time. 

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: His partner, Becky Ramadani, will never get to see or hold him again. 

BECKY RAMADANI:  He was my soulmate. He was my darling but he left us too early. He shouldn't go.

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: A refugee from Afghanistan, Amamuddin arrived in Australia 13 years ago.

His family have made the long journey to Australia to help plan his funeral. 

MASSOUD SADAR:  Some part of my brain is not accepting it still. And, and I'm, I'm, I'm in a very deep shock. 

MEENA SADER:  He was more than a brother, more than a father. Like, I lost my everything on that day.

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: That day, the 17th of February, Setefano Leaaetoa, who had recently escaped from Cumberland Psychiatric Hospital, went to a shopping strip in Merrylands with a knife. 

He allegedly wounds a man and a woman and stabs Amamuddin who died at the outside his friends business.

RAFIQ ZIAYEE:  I could see the pain and suffering in his eyes, and I was trying to do everything to save him, but I couldn't. 

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: Rafiq Ziayee was there as Amamuddin died. He says the community is still on edge. 

RAFIQ ZIAYEE:  People, they really worried about their safety. They have concern about the safety to come here. 

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: The accused killer isn’t the only case of a patient absconding from Cumberland Hospital.

On February 8, the day after Setefano Leaaetoa broke out, another man also escaped.

Luke Francis is alleged to have stolen a car and caused a crash that killed two women. 

NICK HOWSON, NURSES AND MIDWIVES ASSOCIATION:  It's a shame and it's horrible that people died for this attention to come and we've been trying to get this spotlight on mental health services for a very long time.

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: Nick Howson is a delegate for the Nurses and Midwives Association. He's been working at Cumberland for a decade.

NICK HOWSON:  We're a very large facility. We care for a large amount of patients. It stands to reason that the rate of people who run away from care there would be higher than everybody else. 

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: He says hospitals aren’t prisons and the focus needs to be on patient health and not security. 

NICK HOWSON:  We shouldn't get to the point where people are attempting to run away from care or to fight with healthcare professionals. We should not be reaching there.

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: Days after the killings, the state government took the unusual step of placing the hospital under administration.

It was already scheduled to be shut down in 2027 to make way for a new facility but until then, they’ve promised to increase security.

DR PRAMUDIE GUNARATNE, AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OF PSYCHIATRISTS:   These tragic events could have happened in any hospital across our state.

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: 7.30 asked the government how many people abscond from mental health facilities across the state.

The data provided shows almost 22,000 patients were admitted involuntarily to mental health facilities last year and 191 patients absconded from secure mental health units.

PRAMUDIE GUNARATNE: People with severe mental illness are much more likely to harm themselves or to be victims of crime than they ever are to harm anyone else. So these are really rare events, but absconding, that's not really that rare

If we want to prevent these sorts of things happening, the best thing that we can do is to improve our mental health services so that we can actually provide care for people much earlier in the piece before they become so unwell.

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: Before being admitted into a mental health unit, most patients first attend an emergency department.

7.30 can reveal one young man, ordered by law to attend a mental health facility, first had to wait here at Westmead emergency department, for more than four days before a bed was made available. 

But last week, he wasn’t the only patient who experienced this - another man waited even longer across a four-day period before a bed became available.

One doctor has told 7.30 this is akin to torture.

PRAMUDIE GUNARATNE: In Australia, we have 27 beds per 100,000 people. If you look at the international standard, it should be around 60 or above. 

Then if you look at community care, there is just a complete decimation of our outreach community mental health services, which means that people need to reach crisis point before they can actually access care.

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: Recently psychiatrists met to discuss how to improve mental health services in the wake of the 2024 Bondi Junction attack, where six people were killed by a man experiencing psychosis. 

In attendance is one of the newly appointed administrators of Cumberland Hospital, Matthew Large.

MATTHEW LARGE:  I think the system is being, in a way asked to do too much, with the resources that it has.

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: Do you think the Minister for Mental Health takes those views of yours seriously? 

MATTHEW LARGE:  Um, I wouldn't want to talk for the Minister for Mental Health. 

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: It's obviously she has a critical role in ensuring that the ideas and solutions that are raised though are acted through on, though.

MATTHEW LARGE:  I'm sure that she's listening and paying attention. Um, and, um, I think it's an extraordinarily difficult job being the minister for mental health. 

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: Matthew Large says services can’t be improved without more funding.

MATTHEW LARGE:  Mental illness currently accounts for something like 8 to 10 per cent of the disability associated with all medical problems, but is funded at a level of about 3 or 4 per cent. 

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: 7.30 put this to New South Wales Mental Health Minister, Rose Jackson.

7.30 has spoken to one of the administrators you've appointed as the New South Wales government of Cumberland Hospital. They say the only way to improve outcomes there is by spending more money than you already are. Is the government at all open to taking that advice seriously?

ROSE JACKSON:  We are investing records amounts in mental health. Actually, for the first time in the last budget, the mental health budget in New South Wales topped $3 billion. 

But of course, we're always open to conversations about how we can do better. 

MYLES HOULBROOK-WALK: The minister also told 7.30 serious adverse incidents from absconsions are extremely rare at less than 0.01 per cent.

That statistic is little comfort to Amamuddin Sadar’s family.

MEENA SADER:  The pain that I have it, no one should have it. And I don't want anyone have the same pain, such a deep pain that I have in my heart right now.