Australians with mental illness have to choose between food or treatment

From ABC News in Australia:

New research reveals the cost of living with a mental illness has forced many patients to choose between medical treatment and putting food on the table.

The findings also reveal that more than one third of people with a mental illness live on incomes below the poverty line.

The study, by charity SANE Australia, shows many people are caught in a trap of being unable to earn the money they need to access the treatment they depend upon.

Thirty-eight-year-old Kylie Griffin is a single mother of two.

Like many single mums, she faces a constant battle trying to make ends meet.

But unlike others, Ms Griffin has the added hardship of coping with a mental illness.

"Living on a low income made life hell and it made my mental illness worse, because I was worrying about what to pay and the juggle that you go to with no money basically," she said.

Ms Griffin was diagnosed with schizophrenia a decade ago and went onto the disability support pension.

That is when her financial troubles really started.

"The girls would comment on other people's shopping trolleys and what's in them and it's been really hard trying to give the girls everything they need," she said.

"I've just bought cans of baked beans and spaghetti just to get through."

SANE's survey highlights the terrible financial choices faced by people with a mental illness.


'Appalling situation'

Barbara Hocking, the executive director of SANE, says the survey also found the cost of treatment often outstripped the wages earned by people with a mental illness.

"We find this appalling situation where up to 96 per cent of people at times are making that choice between having good treatment for their mental illness, and buying essentials such as food," she said.

"Almost 40 per cent were living on less than $20,000 a year, so they're living below the poverty line, yet they've got high health care expenses, as they have to pay for their mental health treatment and often for associated health conditions.

"We do know that quite a lot of people, that is well over half, were saying that they rely on credit cards to help ends meet, so very often they're going in to debt."

Ms Griffin understands the dilemma all too well.

"To be honest there's people that look down on people like me and think 'Oh ... you're on subsidised trips and health care anyway' and they don't look at the percentage of income that that's coming from," she said.

"It's not a full time wage or anything like that, it reflects the miniscule income that we're living on."

Jeff Galvin has lived with schizophrenia for 23 years.

He supports himself with a variety of jobs, but has first-hand experience of the stigma attached to mental illness.

"Because you've maybe got a 10, 15-year gap in your resume and you've got to explain it away and you tell the truth that you're on medication; you won't get work," he said.

"And yet I've got work in a specialist area that's set aside for people with a mental illness. Now there's just not enough of that type of work to go around."

SANE Australia is calling on the Federal Government to provide greater financial support to people with a mental illness, including improved access to services such as financial counselling.