The construction of new mental health facilities will begin to become the largest mental health facility in New South Wales in western Sydney on Wednesday, but psychiatrists say it will be a "empty shell" until the problems in the state's workforce are resolved.

The psychiatrist's Peak Agency said the $540 million Westmead Comprehensive Mental Health Complex may have the same fate as several recently opened facilities in western Sydney, which can only operate in less than half of the available beds due to a lack of staff.

One third of the state’s permanent public sector psychiatrist positions have been vacant in the state in the state, which is still arbitrated before the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.

The Australian Federation of Sailed Medical Staff (ASMOF) Doctors Alliance, which represents psychiatrists, is advocating a special tax that raises wages by 25%. The union claims that the promotion will prevent the flow of specialist doctors leaving the state’s public system, which is captured in a vicious cycle where the remaining employees are left to catch the slack of understaffed systems, meaning more moral harm and departure.

NSW Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson said on Wednesday that Westmead's "latest technology" facility will have 250 to 300 beds to be able to care for "people who suffer from severe, acute mental illness, eating disorders, adolescents, seniors, and have met someone who has situational distress, anxiety, depression, depression.

"We don't want people to experience mental distress in small isolated facilities. We want to bring their care to an integrated network of healthcare facilities," Jackson said.

"If the weather goes well, the hospital will open in 2027," Jackson said.

Dr. Pramudie Gunaratne, "In terms of its meaning, the fate of the new Westmead department will be the same as other newly built units, once built, it will remain vacant or operate only at a small part of its capacity," said the chairman of the NSW branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand School of Psychiatrists.

Gunaratne said that in the new Campbelltown facility, only two beds are open in the Mental Health Intensive Care Unit (MHICU), while only eight of the 16 beds are open in its high-risk civil rehabilitation units, including the state's only high-risk civil rehabilitation bed for women, all due to a lack of staff.

"No female bed is open, so there are no high-risk female beds in NSW. Currently, the waiting time for patients accepted by the unit is more than 6 months."

She said that in the new forensic facility in Blacktown, which was completed and opened in September, a 44-bed unit with only 16 beds open due to a lack of staff.

“Opening such new units will be a waste of time and money until we resolve the crisis in the mental health workforce in NSW.

“In addition, a new phantom-like unit that we know cannot fully function is hung, mocking the pain of those crying patients and their families.”

"The emergency department is overwhelmed. Patients in the crisis have to wait up to 90 hours of care. Unless the government takes urgent measures to attract and retain psychiatrists, the new complex will be an empty shell."

Asked at a press conference about the labor shortage, Prime Minister Chris Minns said the government believes it will have enough mental health professionals, “whether it is a psychiatrist or someone else working in the system”, is now recruiting to pay it for competitive salaries.

Minnes said the government has been offering “the best offer for psychiatrists, doctors and public sector workers in the state for more than a decade” and it will accept the decision of the Independent Referee (IRC). “All we can’t do is hand over the blank check.”

Health Minister Ryan Park denied that the government was investing in bricks and mortar, not the labor force, saying: "The biggest challenge I've seen is not the new building, it's man-made people. It's still something that gets me up at night."