A THIRD of mental illness patients wait more than eight hours for a hospital bed in Ballarat, the state opposition claimed yesterday.The Victorian Coalition used Freedom of Information laws to have performance indicators for Ballarat Health Services released.According to the indicators, half mental health patients fail to get support in the community before they are admitted to hospital, and 15 per cent are re-admitted within a month because of a lack of support in the community.Opposition mental health spokeswoman Mary Wooldridge said after eight years the State Government had done little to increase funding and services for mental health patients."Because of these massive gaps in the mental health system, people are failing to get care at all stages of their illness," she said."This has serious consequences for the community, including poorer health outcomes, family breakdowns and ... it can result in homelessness."After more than eight years in power the Brumby Government is still reviewing the problem."However, State Government spokeswoman Emma Diffen said investment had been made in mental health services."The Brumby Government's recent budget has increased spending on mental health by $128 million over the next four years," she said."We are also in the process of developing a major 10-year mental health strategy to move our current system to one based more on prevention and early intervention."The statistics were taken from a Department of Human Services report for quarter two of the 2007/2008 financial year.