Among those to refuse a job offer early this month was high-profile private practice convert Dr Irwin Pakula, who walked away from the region's chief psychiatric post in May citing an administrative culture of bullying, gagging and scapegoating.

The health service has denied a staffing problem, saying it was "routine practice" to advise former employees of job opportunities.

But Dr Pakula said he was unsure who was supervising registrars within the Illawarra Community Mental Health Team since his resignation - the fifth in senior mental health ranks in the past year.

The Illawarra Community Mental Health Team draws from a pool of 17 psychiatric registrars to help provide follow-up medication and psychiatric reviews to 400-500 outpatients from Port Kembla to Gerringong.

Dr Pakula said the team risked losing its teaching accreditation - and therefore its trainee psychiatrists - if registrars weren't adequately supervised.

"It's not acceptable to the (Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists) because it puts the trainees in a difficult medico-legal position if they make an incorrect decision," he said.

Dr Pakula said South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Area Health asked him and "a number of other psychiatrists" to return early this month after an overseas locum who had been supervising the trainees left after four weeks on the job.

He refused because he considered the job under existing administration "unwinnable" but predicted a further decline in mental health services in the region if the community team lost its teaching accreditation.

Without follow-up care, hospital readmissions would increase, placing further strain on the already overburdened Shellharbour Hospital and in turn endangering its teaching status.

The director of mental health, associate professor Beth Kotze, denied the mental health team was in danger of losing its psychiatric registrars.

"SESIH has the largest training program for mental health teaching in the NSW public health system," she said.

"Our registrars are supervised by our team of 61 consultant psychiatrists."

Prof Kotze said mental health services were in the process of recruiting staff and it was "routine practice to maintain contact with staff who have worked in the public health sector".

"In fact, Mental Health Connect is a mental health specific recruitment program ... which is considered one of the most successful recruitment tools in NSW," she said.

Prof Kotze said the mental health training program would be reviewed on an undisclosed date next year.