While the closing of psychiatric hospitals and putting people out there in the community was well meaning, I do think they went too far with it. Some folks are a danger to themselves and others and honestly probably need to be in an institution.
A lot of people you see having episodes are fucked on ice. I know this for a fact because I used to run with a lot of them.
Some want to quit and they should have access to treatment and resources to allow them to reintegrate into society.
But then there’s the others. And honestly, these people are the larger percentage. They don’t want to quit. They either see no issue with their lifestyle or are too dependant to even consider quitting.
It’s this second cohort we need to figure out what to do with. The first lot just need government funding.
Both of them are due to Shit Life Syndrome. Honestly with everything electronically tuned to produce the biggest state of fear imaginable on top of end stage capitalism, I’m not surprised that substance escapism is rampant.
that substance escapism is rampant.
escapism as an addiction is a huge problem. But no one wants to talk about phone or alcohol addiction as its often not as public.
I’d easily argue alcohol addiction is very much public in Australia. But as long as it’s the amiable cool fun guy social drinking you get a pass.
Perhaps the solution for the second group is to figure out a way to make them not get on drugs in the first place, at least not the variety that is prone to inducing psychosis. From what I know, most people who get hard into the drugs have usually had a shit start to their life. So better mental health care is probably a good option to start with. Besides that, better systems for looking after kids in care, more resources being put into rehabilitating parents who are in/have been in prison, more of an emphasis on family preservation and/or reunification are good bets.
I do think that the second group are fixable and can become their former selves again, but it’s a fine line. The only option I see for them is some sort of forced intervention and rehabilitation. But obviously you can’t just take people in psychosis, stick them in a prison, and wish for the best. You also can’t just make them go cold turkey, so you’d need somewhere to ethically hold them (more than likely against their will), while also still providing some of whatever drug they’re on, without risking an overdose or allowing any secret syphoning into other people’s bodies (people pretending to shoot up but saving some to sell to other people, etc), and all of that while keeping them and their families reasonably happy, and not violating UN conventions on illegal detainment, and our human rights laws. So thats probably not happening under any democratic government
And then you’d also need a way to make sure that it isn’t easily accessible to them again. Which probably means even more enforcement of drug laws, more drug dogs in public, random searches, etc, which would also piss off everybody
Tbh I don’t see how it is possible to rehabilitate them in an ethical, just, and civilised way. But nonetheless, there are options. It’s the sort of thing I could see working in a dictatorship, but then the problem becomes the dictators or their cronies getting paid off to look the other way
Perhaps the solution for the second group is to figure out a way to make them not get on drugs in the first place, at least not the variety that is prone to inducing psychosis.
That requires some really difficult conversations about how western society is broken AF, and no one seemingly wants to have that cause it doesn’t help the capitalist system.
It’s going to sound barbaric but I feel like this happens a lot when bad things come to light, or are realised by the masses. A couple of things that come to mind from Resi are that hugs with workers were either banned or highly discouraged depending on the placement, regardless of circumstance, and because of all the people that used to come in to work with kids just to feel like a mini dictator, pretty much any form of punishment was prohibited
The last one was kind of hard for me to swallow because I came into the system after they’d been formally banned and restricted in usage, but before the old timers had quit. So when I moved in, if you stepped out of line, there’d be consequences. Might be no drives, or an outing getting cancelled, or losing out on pocket money. But then a few years later all the hardened old timers had quit, and it felt like a free for all. The others would smash up the kitchen, not clean up their mess, go off at a worker, then go to Geelong an hour later.
obviously though...
Obviously that’s not to say that punishment or consequences always have their place, but it just sort of sucked to see other people get away with stuff I’d’ve gotten in deep shit for. But not always getting my way did end up making me a more rounded person and less of a little shot, so I guess it helped me
The issue was that Jeff Kennett closed the institutions with the idea that there would be support in the community, and then the funding for that support later got slashed.
I agree there’s a real problem though.
To be fair it’s a trend that occured across the western world (closure of facilities), so it’s certainly not isolated to Victoria.
The issue was that Jeff Kennett
So much of the states problems could start that way.
There is a random black cat wandering around my back yard and is currently sitting on top of my shed. I had a brief moment of fear until I confirmed Miss Meow is still safely curled up in her basket snoozing.
There’s a black cat that lives on my street that walks me home when I come back late. My local bus round the corner finishes at 9pm, but there’s another bus at the end of my street a 10 minute walk away that runs til midnight. 9/10 times I’m walking home, the kitty runs up behind me and walks alongside me for a few blocks then sits on the corner and watches me go home
Best photo of the kitty I’ve been able to get so far:
I made an online dating profile yesterday. I deleted it today. That was an interesting experiment.
C’mon, it’s not a true experiment if you don’t publish the results. How many bots did you get?
Probs a fair few bots but the matches were just very mehhhh
In Gibson’s name, right?
Probably would have gotten better quality matches lol
I’m going to give you a URL which might ruin any plans you had for the whole day if you’re anything like me: udio.com
I’ve been making ridiculous songs and it’s in-fucking-credible how good it is. Get to know the tags you can use if you use the Custom function rather than letting it just generate its own lyrics and verses etc.
Have fun. Listen to some of the staff picks to hear what sort of things are possible. The first one I heard which blew me away was “Wow… I Didn’t Know That”
If I create anything to that calibre I’ll let you know.
Wow I fucking love this. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I doubt I’ll make anything even halfway decent, but I love it anyway
Thanks B
Does anyone else wake up in the middle of the night to snack?
Have you tried becoming nocturnal? It doesn’t fix the 3am snacking, just the whole waking up at 3am thing
It’s first breakfast.
If I go into the office today it will be just me … But I have pakidge due to be delivered there tomorrow. Should I WFH and risk it being early? It is currently at melb airport so I reckon it has one more stop before the truck.
Gah. Comfy WFH but… pakidge
there’s supposed to ne a big protest in the city today
Good enough reason.
What now
Breakfast 🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋
Spaghetti with sardines, peas, corn and chilli please
🍝🐟🫛🌽🌶️🍋
Yum. You remembered the lemon too!
I would like a hot dog please.
🌭
One cappucino and the will to go on, please 🙏
☕️🥛🤖
Is that robot milk from the Alien film? I’ll take it!
🥤
I have a zit right on the lip of my nostril. It’s like my body doesn’t want me to be seen today. Gorram it
Just pop a mask over it - hidden!
It’s showtime folks!
Nooooooooooooooooooo! Turn that spotlight off - I haven’t got my stage face on yet…
Morning
G’day AJ, how’s life?
Pakige
Pakige 😁 though it means I have to dash into the office when I was having a nice cosy WFH day. I am wearing trackies in protest
I haven’t told anyone in my life (outside of work) that I have a small medical procedure today. I haven’t told my parents because I don’t want them to unnecessarily stress out and they’re enjoying a holiday in Spain. It’s an annoying cyst that needs draining. Hope it goes well.
I now need to fast until surgery 😩 ate 2 ✨kwossants ✨ and a protein shake. Might get some orange juice later as I can have clear liquids until 2 hours before.
How’d it go?
“I’m high as shit on meds (I was under GA and now on Oxyvodone?) . Procedure went well. TMI but I’m high as shit: pain in the ass (pilonidal cyst) is literally gone! Yay ✨”
This was just posted about 15 or so minutes ago. They wanted someone to tag you but every time I try that it fucks up for some reason, so I did the old-fashioned copy and paste.
Thanks Sheila
Well wishes for a speedy procedure and recovery.
hugs
be sure to video and post on one of the disgusting subs on reddit
I made an unfortunate mistake of watching one of those for my condition…and I am extremely nervous.
Taped to the front door of my workplace this morning - wtf?
spoiler
My workplace does not have a dog of any sort.
Um maybe you, as a company, need to come together and train the dog that is annoying that random person. So inconsiderate /s lol
So random question time
When it comes to freedom of information requests, can I still lodge one if I only know what information I want, without knowing if a document containing that specific information exists?
For reasons, I’d like to get a list of the current Ambulance Victoria branches. I’m not entirely sure they’d have one document that neatly outlines each branch they have, so I don’t really know if I can go to the ombudsman to request that, if it would involve them digging through other files and collating my requested information into one single file
Ordinarily I’d just ask their FOI office, but unfortunately their FOI office isn’t very nice. They’ve been asked publicly at least twice, and completely ignored both FOIs, and when I emailed to ask for guidance they told me such information can not be released to the public and that’s just the way it is, that’s why I’ll probably go to the big buddy
Yes I know it's weird but..
I don’t see why an FOI request wouldn’t cover this. The CFA and VicPol both have public pages listing all active stations. And you can pull all the ambo stations from VicEmergency (there’s little station icons on there), that’s just inconvenient and time consuming, and they’re a public agency and FOIs exist for a reason and I’m stubborn
Yep. It’s about the information, not the document. Go for it.
And I am shocked that that info isn’t readily available on their website.
Thanks mag. It is a bit bizarre. It’s on a map, some of them are on Google, but when it comes to an actual list that’s not allowed, for some reason. Oh, and, the ones that have been recently upgraded are listed here
Here’s the public requests they ignored, if anybody was curious: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/av_branchstation_locations
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/locations
Granted, those guys seem to have given up, at least in their public pursuit. I, however, am stubborn and have experience in fighting government agencies tooth and nail over minor things. If they ignore my request, I’ll just go one level higher until somebody doesn’t ignore me, or I run out of levels lol
Edit: also this should be public knowledge imo, so when I get it, I’ll publish it everywhere I can
The only thing that occurs to me is protecting privacy of ambo staff ( i.e. you need to know where the cop station is but you don’t want randos going to the ambo depot for treatment or because of some perceived slight against one of the staff).
The other realistic reason would be that there’s restricted drugs stored at some (most?) of these depots and so, while you need some level of openness about where the depots are, making all those addresses available publicly would probably be perceived as a major risk. Although you can get it now, there’s at least a barrier.
Likely there’s a bunch of politics wrapped up in this and the lack of comms about why its restricted info is shite but I can see why it might be refused.
I’d say it’s probably because of concerns about drugs, which is a fair point and the only reason I’m slightly hesitant about pushing the matter - I most definitely don’t want to endanger AV staff or risk yet more ambulances needing to be pulled out of service to be resupplied and sterilised. But at the end of the day, you can still find the locations if you wish, it just takes some searching
I just wanted to remind people if anyone is struggling due to the craziness of the last couple of days speak up.
Anyone working from home today because of the protests?
I wanted to but had to head in. I think we are a bit away from it so hopefully will be fine and all over before evening trains … Hope they can protest and it’s peaceful enough. Its all been a bit crap out there lately.
I’m sadly still at work despite the happenings of the last few days.
