"Inter hospital/facility transfer"

I (a parent) had to admit my teenager to Atherton hospital for mental health reasons, which was pre-arranged by the child and Youth Mental Health Service (CYMHS). Yet, we still had to go through A&E at Atherton hospital where nothing seemingly important or necessary to get onto the ward was done for a mental health patient. It added to the distress and anxiety which were part of the reason for admission. I believe it also adds to the A&E burden where we now know from our experiences that nothing medically can or will be done for our child.

We transferred to Cairns Base hospital 3 days later and were forced through what I believe to be the useless and unnecessary A&E 'gate' at Cairns Base where again there is nothing that was added from a mental health patient care perspective, but where stress and anxiety are added, and to me, scarce and expensive resources are wasted.

This same process was also experienced with a transfer from Atherton hospital to the Townsville AIUDS facility for a weekend/after-hours admission late 21.

In my opinion, this process must change for child and youth mental health admissions being controlled by what I feel are caring parents on the direction of mental health clinicians. There does not seem to be patient care or clinical reason for this process once a treating or attending psychiatrist/mental health professional makes the transfer call with the clinicians at the next facility.

In fact, in my experience, it increases stress and anxiety for patients that will typically have presented at least partially because of these things.

If this was changed, I believe it will also have given approx 12hrs of time and other important resources back to the A&E departments to help patients that could be helped.