SOURCE:  Tony Moore  (brisbanetimes.com.au senior reporter)
Feb 6th 2014

More than 600 complaints were made about mental health services in Queensland between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2012.

A girl taken to a regional Queensland hospital after telling her father she wanted to commit suicide later tried to kill herself after hospital staff told the pair to find another hospital.

In this case - outlined in the January 2014 Health Quality and Complaints Commission report released on Wednesday - no mental health staff were at the hospital when the pair arrived.

‘‘After waiting a number of hours, hospital staff told the father to take his daughter home and present to another hospital the following day,’’ the report says.

‘‘The father says his daughter was discharged without an assessment by mental health staff.

‘‘She subsequently attempted suicide and had to be hospitalised.’’

The Health Quality and Complaints Commission on Wednesday released its study into 681 complaints about mental health in Queensland between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2012.

The HQCC is an independent medical watchdog.

In a second case study referred to the HQCC, a woman suffering a bipolar disorder and hearing voices was released prematurely from a psychiatric hospital and lost her job.

‘‘The woman was admitted to a hospital under an involuntary treatment order (IPO) for a bipolar condition,’’ the report makes clear.

‘‘The woman was reviewed by the consultant psychiatrist at the hospital and discharged the next day.

‘‘They said because of their daughter’s premature release from hospital without stabilisation of her mental illness, she eventually had to resign from her work.’’