When Dr James Leeder goes to work as a psychiatry registrar in North Sydney he sees some of the most challenging patients in medicine, – sometimes in a single night – “horrific acts of self-harm, hopelessness, people in the throes of psychosis, those who may be deeply substance affected and may be agitated and aggressive”.
“This is a hard job done by people who want to help,” he says. However, he sees the toll it is taking on his colleagues when, amid a workforce crisis where one in three psychiatrist positions in the state are vacant, they provide care for double the number of patients they are meant to.
