I suffer from mental illness, I recently went to the ED at Canberra hospital. 

Night Staff there are Amazing! 

But there was only one mental health professional available who had 3 people in front, I’d already been waiting an hour so that meant I would wait even longer in the ED than most because, as I already stated, THERE WAS ONLY ONE MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL AVAILABLE!  I couldn’t take it any longer and got up to leave, luckily my husband convinced me to stay and straight away after that I had some lovely staff come and reassure me. They gave me something to calm down and then half an hour later I went to an interview room with Luke, the only mental health professional available in the ED that night, and we chatted and found it best I stay overnight and see the Psychiatrist in the morning. They told my husband that the morning staff would call him to let him know I was there and ok and he could come down. That phone call didn’t happen. I had a great sleep but woke up alone and scared. I was crying asking the nurse station can I please see a doctor. I was teary but polite, and they said they will get someone down ASAP. I went back to my bed and  a man in his 50s enters.  It seems confrontational from the start. He begins talking about extremely irrelevant things that happened a long time ago in my past BEFORE my diagnosis, and I told him to not be condescending to me. He replied with “Don’t yell” , which I replied “I’m just loud and frustrated right now.. shall we start again...” he basically then said he was going to admit me....and I said I’m going away this weekend so how long will this be? He said you may be able to have leave ...............yeah - no.  I thought he was the psychiatrist..... I agreed to end the conversation and then I immediately called my husband and said we are out of here.  We left and 30 mins later the hospital called saying the psychiatrist is here to see you where are you? I explained the above and she said no he was just a medical clinician.  Couldn’t believe it! I said well he never introduced himself so I thought he was the psychiatrist, he said he was going to admit me and I was petrified I have been managing my illness for years and yes sometimes the meds don’t work as good and you have to re check some stuff ... my GP gave me Valium until I could see the private psychiatrist but that in the meantime if the Valium isn’t work go to the ED and explain what’s going on (which we did more than once).

Sidenote: In regards to my husband not getting his morning phone call - the handover between hospital day and night staff need to be more thorough, as the night staff attending to me through the night were empathetic caring and reassuring me, and I felt safe. 

The day shift on the other hand: complete opposite. 

There Needs to be more than 1 mental health professional available and seperate waiting rooms for those with mental illness. More emphasis all round at all Hospitals on how to accomodate a person with a mental illness  coming into an  Emergency Department.