Thank you for your comments and insights.
Up here we also depend on FIFO health professionals for the really hard lifting - by definition these people are not readily accessible and time available for their services is literally limited. Waiting lists can be months long. They have to watch the clock as much as listen to you. This is unsatisfactory and city folk have NO IDEA.
Where I live is halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. There are large towns out here. Only city folk would consider where I live to be 'remote'. The health system... EVERY system ... is so completely focused on the cities on the coast that we always get the dribs and drabs. Even with medication, the pharmacies in rural areas are at the end of the supply chain and they occasionally run out of basic supplies. I've had to wait for my antidepressant meds to come back in stock... I'm not supposed to just stop taking them!
The locally based mental health services are overstretched. There are excellent and caring people involved, but I do believe because we are 'rural' the pool of locally-available and willing professionals is very small. The pressures put on them are ridiculous. It seems to me also that, being so desperate to keep services open, people who ally should not be working in these roles keep them, almost on tenure. This leads to serious abuses. I know of one person in charge - she's been there about 15 years - who has such a bad reputation for cruelty in the area that I have heard more than one person refer to her as having 'blood on her hands'. I believe it because I have been on the receiving end myself (she literally put me in danger and threatened me) and she is the main reason I do not feel safe seeking help at the nearest hospital. Her job, it seems, is safe. Who else is going to do her job? We have nowhere else to go.
