Psychiatrists say higher salaries needed to retain doctors and attract new ones to care for mental health patients
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When Dr James Leeder goes to work as a psychiatry registrar in North Sydney he sees some of the most challenging patients in medicine – sometimes in a single night – “horrific acts of self harm, hopelessness, people in the throes of psychosis, those who may be deeply substance affected and may be agitated and aggressive”.
“This is a hard job done by people who want to help,” he says. However, he sees the toll it is taking on his colleagues when – amid a workforce crisis where one in three psychiatrist positions in the state are vacant – they provide care for double the number of patients they are meant to.
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