Transparency trumps secrecy

... the Government does itself no favours when it presides over the removal of statistics ...

Wait times are a stark measure of an overloaded mental health system. The numbers gathered by National mental health spokesman Matt Doocey and reported by Stuff show that in many parts of New Zealand, children and teenagers have unacceptably long waits to access mental health care.

The figures also show that in most places, the wait has worsened over five years.

If you were in Canterbury, you waited nearly three times as long in 2019-20 as you would have in 2015-16. In Taranaki, more than four times as long. In Auckland, Nelson-Marlborough and Waikato, twice as long. In Wellington and Ka¯ piti Coast, one and a half times as long.

People with direct experience of the mental health system won’t be remotely surprised by these reports. Young people who should be seen urgently typically wait weeks or months for serious help.

Even Health Minister Andrew Little acknowledges that wait times have grown. How could he not? It’s there in black and white. Yet he counters that by saying that the Government is focused on growing the mental health workforce.

But at other times this week, Little has been more combative.

There was understandable concern and dismay that a normally routine government report on mental health services was held up while bureaucrats argued over what to include and what to remove.

Stuff broke that story on Sunday. It was revealed that important statistics were missing, including numbers on wait times for mental health services, suicide statistics and even figures on the overall proportion of the New Zealand population who use specialised mental health services.

Official Information Act requests eventually revealed significant internal debates on what should be included. The 2018 report in question was finally released last month.

The revelation resulted in a public dispute between the Mental Health Foundation and Little, who seemed comfortable with what most would agree was an unacceptable situation. The foundation’s Shaun Robinson was ‘‘gobsmacked’’ by the amount of crucial data missing from what he called a ‘‘scathing’’ report on mental health in New Zealand.

The Ministry of Health claims it is merely trying to modernise its reporting. It creates an impression of a Government that is eager to paint an aspirational picture of kindness, well-being and empathy yet continues to fail some of our most vulnerable people.

It is telling that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern distanced herself from Little’s fairly rigid position, making it clear that the decisions were made by the ministry and that ‘‘it’s an issue that the minister and I have spoken about and, I understand, he’ll be working with the ministry on’’. You can read between the lines.

Ardern promised transformational action on mental health when she campaigned in 2017. She talked movingly of a ‘‘commitment’’ to ‘‘make a difference for those families who have already experienced loss’’.

No-one expected our mental health challenges to be fixed overnight, and it’s important to remember that this Government made a major funding commitment in this area in 2019. Yet the Government does itself no favours when it presides over the removal of statistics that would enable all of us to see the problems more clearly.

More information is always better than less. Green Party mental health spokeswoman Chlo¨ e Swarbrick is surely on the right track when she argues that the Ministry of Health should be legally required to produce a wide range of mental health statistics. Transparency trumps secrecy.