Mental health presentations to emergency departments in the Hunter's primary health network rose 10 per cent in seven years to more than 17,000 people a year, federal government data shows.
The figures can be revealed as a NSW government gap analysis, released on Sunday, showed 58,000 people a year across the state with severe mental health needs were missing out on care.
Health data shows only 6513 people were admitted to hospital for mental health reasons in 2023 in the Hunter's primary health network, which includes the New England and Central Coast areas.
The data, obtained by the Newcastle Herald, showed more than 10,000 people were now being turned away from emergency departments annually for mental health issues in this network.
The gap analysis and national data confirmed this trend was occurring across the state and country.
NSW Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson told the media on Sunday that "we're looking at various ways to adequately meet the mental health needs of our vulnerable communities".
The gap analysis pinpointed four areas for reform: funding for community mental health services, workforce and training, improving emergency mental health care and the expansion of "psychosocial support".
Hunter Medical Research Institute CEO Frances Kay-Lambkin said safe havens for people in crisis should be expanded to take pressure off emergency departments.
"The evidence suggests that if you can invest in safe havens, then it significantly reduces emergency department [ED] presentations for mental health," she said.
"That makes EDs cheaper to run, so the money you save pays for the safe havens."
Professor Kay-Lambkin, also a psychologist and mental health researcher, said safe havens would provide "better prevention and early intervention opportunities".
This would mean the "acute high cost services" weren't needed as much.
Suicidal people "feel like there's nowhere for them to connect", while safe havens connect people to "peer support and evidence-based programs".
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data shows mental health-related presentations in emergency departments rose 13 per cent nationally from 254,901 in 2014-15 to 287,419 in 2022-23.
Mental health-related resuscitations soared from 1995 to 4921 over this period, while emergencies in this category rose from 31,403 to 56,108.
Almost a third of these presentations were for "mental and behavioural disorders due to psychoactive substance use".
And about a quarter were due to "neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders".
The Newcastle Herald reported in March on the suicide of Stockton's Kahi Simon at age 20.
His family and the Black Dog Institute have called for 24-7 safe havens.
Newcastle's Safe Haven is open only three days a week for five hours a day.
Ms Jackson, the mental health minister, told the Herald in March that safe havens were "an important part of community care".
"We are aware of the variability of the hours of operation," she said.
This coincided with the Herald reporting that the Hunter New England health district recorded 1331 suicides from 2012 to 2021 - the most in NSW.
The Hunter New England's rate of 14 suicides per 100,000 people was above the NSW rate of 10.5 and the national rate of 12.3.
Professor Kay-Lambkin believed the focus should be on "why, with these universally high suicide rates, are we not getting the funding we need to do better".
She said there "should be a public outcry around suicide".
