Lucy Williams, 24, features in a video released on Wednesday by Orygen, The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, highlighting some of the flaws in the mental health system.

“When people do ask for help, a lot of the time the help isn’t available,” she says in the footage.

“I think that’s sometimes where the issue is in Victoria, and Australia. 

“We’re working really hard on the stigma and telling people to reach out, but if the services aren’t there and they’re not readily accessible I don’t know how helpful telling people to ask for help is.”

Ms Williams told the Bendigo Advertiser she considered herself fortunate.

“A lot of elements of my story are very privileged,” she said.

“I feel like if it was hard for me, it is going to be 10 times as hard for other young people, and people of all ages.”

Doctors considered hospitalising Ms Williams when she was about 14 years old in relation to anxiety and depression. She was more recently diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder.

“I did have some really good care when I was in Bendigo,” Ms Williams said.

But it wasn’t until she moved to Melbourne for university that she had the opportunity to access hospitalisation.

“In that respect, there weren't the facilities that I possibly needed,” Ms Williams said.

PROFESSOR Patrick McGorry knows people care deeply about youth mental health.

The lauded executive director of Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health has the survey results to prove it.

What he believes people are less confident of is their capacity to effect change. 

Less than a month out from the state election, Professor McGorry and his team are calling on people to make it clear to candidates how much they value youth mental health services.

Orygen is campaigning for youth mental health to be a priority for the next state government, from primary care through to specialist clinical services.

People like Bendigo woman Lucy Williams are sharing their stories as part of the campaign.

“I’ve always been lucky, I would say, that I’ve had my mum’s support particularly,” Ms Williams said.

She sought help for anxiety and depression during her early teens and said she was fortunate to have had support both in school and from health professionals.

“The first GP I saw took what I was saying seriously – I was really lucky,” Ms Williams said.

Even so, there have been periods when she has considered taking her own life and presented to emergency departments.

“It sometimes reached a point when there weren’t beds in a hospital where they could take me,” Ms Williams said.

“I was on a waiting list, but I wasn’t ever hospitalised when I was in Bendigo.”

She considered it important to speak up to ensure care was available to young people when and where it was needed – a goal consistent with the aims of the Orygen campaign.

Professor McGorry identified a particular gap in services for young people with ‘complex and severe experiences of mental ill-health’.

“There is virtually no pathway beyond the GP and headspace centres for tens of thousands of young people with potentially serious mental illnesses,” he said.

For more about the campaign, click here.

LABOR has named the executive director of the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Professor Patrick McGorry, as its choice of chair of the expert panel for a proposed royal commission.

A re-elected Labor government would establish a royal commission into mental health within 100 days.

“If that comes to fruition I’d be very honoured and I’d treat it with a huge responsibility to deliver a much better system,” Professor McGorry told the Bendigo Advertiser.

Victorians go to the polls on November 24.

RELATED: Premier promises royal commission into mental health

Orygen was one of many organisations to welcome the proposal of a royal commission into mental health, which Premier Daniel Andrews announced in Kyneton this week.

“At present out of the three per cent of Victorians experiencing serious mental illness only 1.1 per cent are receiving specialist care,” Professor McGorry said in response to Labor’s pledge. 

“This means every day two out of three seriously ill Victorians miss out on the care and treatment they need.”

If you or someone you know needs urgent support, call Lifeline (13 11 14) or Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800). In an emergency, call 000.

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