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A Canberra woman has been refused entry to a NSW psychiatric hospital, because there has been no ACT funding and ACT law does not apply to it.

The 73-year-old woman’s daughter said her mother had been committed to the Rozelle Psychiatric Hospital for six months by an ACT magistrate on Monday under the Inebriates Act.

The daughter had sought the order because she could no longer cope with her mother.

She had been taken to Rozelle by ACT police, but refused a six-month committal. After police pleaded, she had been admitted temporarily, but, according to the daughter the hospital might attempt to send her back to the ACT alone by train this morning.

The hospital would not comment on the case last night.

The magistrate could not be contacted last night. A spokeswoman for the Minister for Health, Wayne Berry, said his office was seeking urgent clarification with NSW authorities and would notify the daughter as soon as possible.

The daughter said she would not go to Sydney to pick her mother up. She listed extensive impossible alcoholic behaviour recently and said after 20 years she could no longer cope.

“”She won’t voluntarily give up alcohol,” the daughter said. “”We tried to get her to voluntarily enter detoxification.”

She had been in and out of the detoxification unit at Woden many times. The police and doctors suggested getting the order was the best way to do something.

The daughter said that 2 years ago her mother had been sent to Kenmore in Goulburn, but that had closed.

It is understood that the ACT had funding arrangements with Kenmore so ACT orders were carried out there.

The case highlights the difficulty of the ACT having to send people interstate after court committal under the Inebriates Act, the Mental Health Act or for crimes. Act magistrates and judges have long complained about it being unsatisfactory to send people interstate where they were beyond the court’s control.

The daughter said the court staff had said they could do nothing and that the mother would be in the daughter’s guardianship on her return.

“”I have a lot of aggression towards my mother,” the daughter said, “”but she is my mother. There have got to be other cases like that of my mother.”

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