Moana House has funding plea

MOANA House programme director Claire Aitken has a heartfelt plea to the inquiry into mental health and addiction — make her life easier.

To keep Moana House running, Ms Aitken applies to six funding organisations, with all the paperwork that entails.

One lifeline has been secured — Ministry of Health funding has been renewed.

Now, as in every year, Ms Aitken waits for the remainder of Moana House’s funding applications to be accepted before she knows Moana can continue to offer residential support for men battling addiction.

‘‘It takes a huge amount of time,’’ she said.

‘‘You can’t just leave it and assume it’ll be right on the day: we have to be a responsible employer, which means being really clear about being able to fund all the staff we have employed — quite apart from the needs of the people who want to use our service.’’

Complicating matters this year is an unexpected convergence of contract end dates on June 30, which meant more of the service’s funding was ‘‘at risk’’ than previously, Ms Aitken said.

Health Minister David Clark told RNZ yesterday Moana House would be funded for the coming year.

Ms Aitken said while reassured, she wanted something in writing before she could relax.

‘‘It would free up an enormous amount of time if we knew we had funding for three years, for five years,’’ she said.

‘‘After a bit of time delivering your reports and that sort of thing, there must be such a thing as a trusted provider.

‘‘We are regularly audited, so surely all those audits must go to saying we have looked at this person’s books, they use an appropriate accounting firm, so there must be at some level a sense of trust, so you can say a fiveyear contract is more viable so you can plan better.’’

Secure funding, making compliance with regulations easier, and pooling some costs across the sector would aid administrators, Ms Aitken said.

‘‘We have already put our submissions in to the inquiry . . . not only are we working in a very difficult environment as to whether your funding will continue, there’s never been any increase — this will be our 10th year with no increase,’’ Ms Aitken said.

Ms Aitken said she would press the inquiry on reducing barriers to entry for addiction services, as many families could not afford the preentry requirements.

‘‘Something has to be done to assist people to get into service more easily,’’ Ms Aitken said.

‘‘One of the reasons why we have such a long waiting list isn’t because we’re so brilliant, it’s because it’s just about impossible for us to refer somebody somewhere else — and it’s not always about waiting lists.

‘‘It’s not a manufactured crisis, it’s just collectively all coming together after a number of years where funding has been cut and models that haven’t been working for quite some time haven’t been attended to.’’

The inquiry into mental health and addiction sits in Invercargill on May 28, Oamaru on May 29, and Dunedin on May 30.

❛ One of the reasons why we have such a long waiting list isn’t because we’re so brilliant, it’s because it’s just about impossible for us to refer somebody somewhere else Moana House programme director Claire Aitken