Taking the unprecedented step of speaking publicly about their concerns in an attempt to prompt a response from the people holding the purse strings, members of Shoalhaven Hospital’s medical staff council said there was an urgent need for a planned mental health unit at Shoalhaven Hospital.

The 12 to 15-bed unit was included in a clinical services plan put together when the Illawarra Area Health Services was merged into South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Health, identifying areas that had been under-resourced.

That report indicated a mental health unit in Shoalhaven Hospital was “a very high priority”, said medical staff council chair Dr Tony Fitzpatrick.

While medical officials at the time of the merger acknowledged mental health services in the Shoalhaven were under-resourced, “The momentum since that, in my opinion, has fallen off,” Dr Fitzpatrick said.

Yet hospital staff continued to be confronted by people experiencing mental health problems.

Dr Fitzpatrick said a large proportion of the work in the hospital’s accident and emergency department was related to mental health problems, yet the hospital’s staff could not access a psychiatrist to advise on treating patients.

The issues became particularly difficult, Dr Fitzpatrick said, when patients presented displaying medical and mental health concerns.

Frequently those patients remained in intensive care beds once their medical conditions were remedied, often waiting days for vacancies in mental health units, according to Dr Fitzpatrick.

And in the process they kept emergency cases, or people waiting for surgery, away from the level of medical care available only in hospitals.

“We don’t have the capacity to be looking after, babysitting, people waiting to be transferred to an acute mental health facility,” Dr Fitzpatrick said.

“Trying to get a patient in to see mental health services in this region is extremely difficult,” he said.

Mental health services in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven have been under fire in recent weeks amid suggestions a large number of psychiatrists and psychiatric registrars had resigned from the service.