Young people have asked the South Australian government not to risk their lives by closing an eating disorder unit. As parliament sat for the second time this year, a second protest mounted the steps of parliament house to complain about Premier Mike Rann's government.

On Monday, it was more than 50 logging trucks and a thousand people protesting plans to sell off future forestry harvests. On Tuesday, Georgia Taylor, 22, urged the Labor government not to move patients at a special unit at Flinders Hospital to a psychiatric unit that caters for a range of disorders.

She says she lost friends when she struggled with anorexia nervosa and she wanted to eat but didn't know how, until she went to ward 4G. "They teach you how to change the voices in your head, basically, and make you be able to eat and not abuse food in a bad way and you learn to like food and be able to enjoy life," she said.

Ms Taylor was scared when she was once put in a locked ward with patients with range of psychiatric disorders.

Liza Kappelle smh.com.au

February 9, 2011

The topic of Eating Disorders will be discussed and explored at the 12th International Mental Health Conference 'Personality Disorders - Out of the Darkness' on the Gold Coast, 24th - 26th August 2011