The contributions of two Orange women towards mental health reforms are included in a book about female activists in the field.
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Robyn Murray and Jenny Coleman, who was awarded an OAM for her contribution in 2020, are among several women named in Hope Strength and Determination: Celebrating 50 Years of Women Activists and Reformers in Mental Health Reform in NSW 1970-2020.
Ms Murray is the senior manager with the Ministry of Health's Pathways to Community Living Initiative, which transitions people with "severe and persistent mental illness" out of long-term hospitalisation back into the community.
Those long stays were considered to be a human rights issue and the initiative helped reduce the amount of time people spent in mental health hospitals such as Bloomfield by about a third.
Ms Murray said schizophrenia was the main illness and of 380 patients, some had been in hospital for more that a year, while others had been there up to 30 years.
"We assessed these people and saw they could and should live in the community with the right support," she said.
As a result, a hospital in North Ryde reduced its average stays from five years to just over a year. "[At Bloomfield], the majority of that original long stay group have been able to transition into the community," she said.
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One of those people was a woman who had been at Bloomfield for 30 years after experiencing postnatal psychosis 40 years ago that led to a lifelong illness.
"We helped her make contact with her sister and nephews and she is now in an aged care home out of Orange," Ms Murray said. "Within a week she said, 'I don't want to go back'."
Ms Coleman has a lived experience of mental health having been diagnosed with bipolar when she was 32 in 1982.
She's also worked as a consumer advocate with NSW Mid-Western Mental Health District since 1996 and helped establish the O'Brien Centre in 1998. Ms Coleman is now in her 73rd year and is looking forward to retiring later in the year.
"We were making furniture in 1998 and it just grew from there, making furniture became too hard because too many people were coming," she said.
She said the centre is a safe place for people living with a mental health issue who can enjoy friendship, or do a variety of activities.
"It's really powerful to talk to someone," she said.
The book is available on the Mental Health Commission of NSW website.
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Tanya Marschke
I am based at Orange and cover a wide range of subjects as well as the weekly business column. I've worked consistently in the the media industry since 2006 including the past seven years at the Central Western Daily. Before moving to Orange, I worked as a journalist at weekly newspapers the Beaudesert Times and the Gold Coast Sun in Queensland, as well as the Scone Advocate in the Hunter Valley. I started my career at the Ridge News in Lightning Ridge while I completed my journalism studies remotely at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.
I am based at Orange and cover a wide range of subjects as well as the weekly business column. I've worked consistently in the the media industry since 2006 including the past seven years at the Central Western Daily. Before moving to Orange, I worked as a journalist at weekly newspapers the Beaudesert Times and the Gold Coast Sun in Queensland, as well as the Scone Advocate in the Hunter Valley. I started my career at the Ridge News in Lightning Ridge while I completed my journalism studies remotely at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.
