NO BUT MASS RESIGNATIONS, UNDERFUNDED, UNDERSTAFFED IN OUR MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE URGENTLY FIXED & FUNDED. THIS IS A HUGE REASON WHY TRAGEDIES LIKE BONDI WESTFIELD'S AND HELEN HAINES OCCUR 👇👇👇 GROK SAYS- The mass resignation of public health psychiatrists in New South Wales (NSW) occurred in late December 2024, with the resignations officially scheduled to take effect on 21 January 2025. Ultimately, 206 staff specialist psychiatrists submitted their resignations. This represented roughly half of the active public psychiatry workforce in the state, plunging the NSW mental health sector into a historic crisis. The mass exodus was driven by a bitter industrial dispute between the doctors' union, the Australian Salaried Medical Officers' Federation (ASMOF), and the NSW Labor government. The Pay Dispute: Psychiatrists demanded a 25% base pay increase over one year. They argued that NSW psychiatrists were the lowest-paid in Australia, facing a 30% pay gap compared to other states, which made it impossible to recruit new staff. The government countered with an offer of 10.5% over three years, which doctors called "bitterly demoralising". Patient Safety & Burnout: Clinicians testified that chronic understaffing—with nearly a third of all public psychiatry positions sitting vacant—had created dangerous workloads. Many stated they could no longer be complicit in a system that was actively harming patients due to a lack of resources and beds. 1. Immediate System Disruption As the 21 January deadline hit, the public mental health system faced immediate strain. Over 60 public mental health beds were temporarily closed, and hospitals were forced to limit psychiatric assessments, delaying patient discharges and causing severe backlogs in emergency departments. 2. Emergency Interventions and Rehiring "Loophole" To keep the system from completely collapsing, NSW Health established a Mental Health Emergency Operations Centre, set up virtual psychiatry hubs, and heavily relied on expensive temporary locum doctors. Remarkably, by February 2025, about one-third of the psychiatrists who resigned were rehired by the state as independent contractors or Visiting Medical Officers (VMOs). Because they were no longer bound by staff specialist salary caps, these returning psychiatrists were able to secure massive pay bumps, potentially worth tens of thousands of dollars extra, at a much higher cost to taxpayers. Not all 206 doctors walked away permanently at the exact same time; around 25 rescinded their notices and over 80 agreed to defer their resignations to allow the dispute to be arbitrated. The matter was brought before the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) for major hearings in mid-March 2025 to determine a structured legal resolution to the pay and safety dispute.