Women’s Mental Health

About Cabrini Women’s Mental Health

Cabrini has opened Australia’s first private, women’s-only mental health hospital at Cabrini Elsternwick.

Located in the new Lisa Thurin Women’s Health Centre in the heart of Elsternwick, the Cabrini Women’s Mental Health service focuses on treatment for mental ill health.

This modern hospital is the first of its kind in Australia and is a prototype for subsequent services for women. This service primarily focuses on treatment for mental health conditions including:

• Mood disorders (including depression, bipolar, premenstrual dysphoric disorder)
• Anxiety
• Complex trauma (including post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD)
• Addiction

As part of Cabrini Health, this 30-bed inpatient unit with psychosocial treatment programs is coupled with new, individualised treatment methods in a private, secure and empowering setting.

Model of care

Cabrini Women’s Mental Health service offers a short-stay mental health program supported with intensive day programs, telehealth and community support. We offer targeted treatments for improving women’s mental health. Women have access to an innovative, biopsychosocial package of care, which provides holistic treatments designed to optimise outcomes for women.

The Lisa Thurin Women’s Health Centre offers:

• 30 inpatient beds
• Multidisciplinary specialist workforce
• Inpatient stay with a range of programs including therapies
• and lifestyle modification
• Homecare support, post inpatient care
• Tailored day/evening programs

To be admitted or referred to the Lisa Thurin Women’s Health Centre, a client will require a referral from their treating medical professional. To find out more about this process discuss with your GP or psychiatrist.

Principles of care

We operate under the principle that women experiencing acute phases of mental illness have a better response to treatment, better outcomes and better overall wellbeing when they receive treatment in a women’s-only facility with treatments and programs that are individualised to the specific needs of women and to the specific characteristics of the illness that are specific to women.

The following principles underpin everything we do:

• Client-centred
• Recovery-orientated
• Holistic
• Trauma-informed
• Bundled-care
• Consumer and carer informed
• Inclusive
• Research-driven and research-assessed

As a private hospital we have arrangements with most major private health insurers. Subject to a client’s level of cover, some out of pocket costs may be incurred. A fund eligibility check can be performed by the hospital to advise the client of their coverage.

Clients with restricted benefit cover (not fully covered for the service) may elect to upgrade their cover should they require admission without serving a waiting period, to a status that provides full cover. The option to do this is arranged with the client’s health fund, with the client being required to pay an upgraded cover amount. The option to upgrade cover is available to a client only once. Once exercised, if the new level of cover is not maintained, the client will incur out of pocket expenses in the event a future admission is required. The option to upgrade cover was introduced in 2018 as part of a suite of Private Health Insurance reforms by the Commonwealth Government and is not hospital or fund specific.

Clients who seek to self-fund their admission will be provided with an estimate of the cost of their program by contacting the Intake team on (03) 9508 5100.