$8m for mental health unit
An individualised six-bed unit would provide the kind of service that high-profile Kenepuru patient Ashley Peacock could have potentially benefited from, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.
It was announced this week that Peacock would be released from the psychiatric facility he has lived in since 2010. Capital and Coast District Health Board (DHB) has been criticised for several years over the holding of Peacock in what’s been described as ‘‘cell-like’’ conditions.
The national service would be lead out of Porirua’s Kenepuru Mental Health Facility, and while the initial funding had been allocated for a six-bed building, there was space on site for a further four units to be built if demand required.
Ardern said $8.4 million in funding ‘‘would provide quality, individualised care for New Zealand’s most high needs intellectual disability and mental health patients’’.
‘‘It may be a small number of people who need this service but, at the moment, we’re not meeting that need,’’ she said.
‘‘These people are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. They and the staff who care for them deserve fit-for-purpose facilities that meet existing needs, and this investment ensures that."
Health Minister David Clark said it was hoped the unit would provide ‘‘greater quality of life’’ for patients who had previously been in inpatient services for a long period of time.
More information would come out through the independent inquiry into mental health and addiction services, Clark said. It was scheduled to report back to the Government by the end of October. ‘‘We expect it to result in robust recommendation and advice for improving outcomes for those suffering mental health distress.
‘‘Getting this new facility under way will mean better care for a small group of clients and wider benefits across the sector in terms of reduced pressure on existing facilities,’’ Clark said.
It was costing the public healthcare system almost $2500 a day to keep Peacock behind locked doors, despite human rights concerns and his family’s wish for his release.
Peacock was spending up to 23 hours a day in an isolation wing.
The 40-year-old autistic man’s living situation was labelled ‘‘cruel and inhuman’’ in an Ombudsman’s report.
The Capital and Coast DHB has been chosen to lead the service because it holds high-level forensic contracts and the staffing expertise already existed within the hospital grounds.
General manager, Mental Health, Addictions and Intellectual Disability Services across the three Wellington DHBs, Nigel Fairley said it would fill a vital gap.
‘‘There isn’t a service like this, for this small group of people.’’
Currently services were provided in different places and were of different quality. They were not all necessarily geared for the specialist service the new unit would be providing, Fairley said.
That was not a failure, but it a gap in the configuration of services nationwide, that he said staff were delighted to fill.