Only a month after its chief executive spoke about her “sense of joy” when the first sod was turned on the $12 million Hume GP Super Clinic in Broadmeadows, Dianella Community Health faces possible bankruptcy.
The state government has dumped Dianella and Merri Community Health Services as mental health care providers.
“We are deeply shocked,” chief executive Veronica Jamison said when Dianella’s tender to the government was rejected last week.
“This erodes our funding base and our ability to provide other services.”
Ms Jamison said Broadmeadows was one of the neediest areas of Australia and chronic heart disease and mental health issues were prevalent.
She said Dianella had borrowed heavily to invest in the new super clinic and now could face more than $250,000 in redundancy payouts to the 12 welfare workers, team leaders and co-ordinators who will lose their jobs as a result of the government’s decision.
A further 17 workers will lose their jobs at Merri CHS and the Salvos in Brunswick will also be affected.
Dianella will lose more than 5 per cent of its annual funding, about $1.25 million, and
will need to keep paying a lease on the building it currently uses for mental health services.
“This is eroding our ability to stay viable,” Ms Jamison said, adding that the government also required a number of other community services to undergo competitive tendering in areas that had never been tendered out before, including alcohol and drug counselling.
“Mental health in the north is already under-resourced,” she said. “There’s a high incidence of domestic violence and yet there’s not one women’s refuge.”
Ms Jamison said Dianella, which has won many awards for the quality of its mental health services, had spent “quite a lot” of money preparing its tender to the government, which is yet to announce which organisation will take over after July.
Broadmeadows Labor MP Frank McGuire said it was the worst time for jobs to be axed in Melbourne’s north, an area of greatest need and greatest growth.
“I’m calling on the minister [Mary Wooldridge] to give a full account to Parliament and the public as to why these organisations have lost this important service,” he said.
