Sze Tjin Yek

Warning to readers: The following texts mention violent themes and deaths.

An audit of inpatients' death between 2011-2014 revealed out of 45 incidents, a small number of causes were listed as unknown, overdose and homicide respectively. The remaining 36 deaths were the result of suicide. This represents a fraction of the annual mortality rate of 500 patients in Victoria that succumbed to violent deaths under the care of the public system.

Patients face a severe lack of access to legal support in the event of harmful circumstances within care facilities. Surveillance recordings are regularly erased, and they suffer the burden of proof (recounting details of traumatic events) while having been mentally unwell. The Module emphasises a proactive approach to surveillance in community care by logging users at touchpoints from entry to exit, documenting and flagging events inconsistent to the primary care patients.

Mental health patients do not have access to therapy during their course of treatment.
The Module intervenes in the isolating conditions of community mental health facilities by affording patients remote access to therapy sessions, bringing much needed counselling into their space via video call.

Community mental health centres caters three main meals a day for patients, at rigid meal hours. Outside of meal times, consumables can only be obtained through the discretion of mental-health workers. The Module alleviates dependency on staff through in room automatic dispensation of daily snack-packages.

The Module accommodates the delivery of essentials through contextual patient and staff interfaces; to unlocks vaults that either dispense or facilitate the storage of items.

The Module speculates ways mental health community centres might provide equitable living standards for patients, by attuning to their security, access to essentials, and agency.

Music credit: The Neighbourhood - Compass (instrumental)