Regional services in crisis

Some districts are short one in four mental health workers, as demand for support only grows.

A psychologist in Auckland, who did not want to be named to protect the privacy of her patients and practice, said ‘‘total overload’’ and short-staffing meant referrals to community mental health services for even some high-risk, suicidal patients were being declined.

‘‘It’s a real shit show ... Everyone is understaffed, nobody has capacity to take anyone.’’

For some, the only way to access public mental health services was to end up in hospital, she said.

Official Information Act data obtained by the National Party showed in February, clinical psychology vacancies accounted for 25.2% of Counties Manukau’s allied health vacancies.

Tauranga had a 24.7% mental health vacancy rate and Whakatāne a 25.1% vacancy rate. In Whanganui, 20% of community mental health roles were vacant, risk reports showed.

In Waikato, 13.1% of paid mental health FTE (full time equivalent) roles were vacant in April, up from 9.4% in May 2021.

Whanganui’s 12-bed inpatient acute mental health service, Te Awhina, had 21 patients in it in April – deemed a ‘‘critical risk’’. Between February and March, capacity was regularly above 100% and peaked at 125%.

Mental health staff were doing as much as they could with what they had, but the public sector in particular was in ‘‘crisis’’, the psychologist, who works in private practice, said.

The psychologist said mental health services were operating as the ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’. ‘‘By the time you get to them, public or private, they’re often so far down the cliff.’’

Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson said district mental health services were ‘‘massively under the pump’’ and had been for many years.

‘‘If anything, that pressure is getting worse not better.’’

Robinson said there had been insufficient planning or investment, going back decades, to maintain the people and skills to respond to growing mental health needs.

Covid-19 ‘‘upped the ante’’ of pressure on the community and getting appropriate specialist paediatric psychiatric services and eating disorder treatment had become ‘‘incredibly difficult’’, he said.

National’s mental health and suicide prevention spokesperson Matt Doocey said there were too few beds and not nearly enough specialists to cope with the ‘‘dire’’ state of mental health.

He said Aotearoa was short close to 210 full-time psychologists and psychiatrists and was concerned over-occupancy could lead to patient harm.

Doocey criticised the timing of the Government’s health reforms and said more focus should have been put on building on the country’s ‘‘critical’’ workforce shortages.

In a bid to bolster the workforce, Health Minister Andrew Little on Friday announced a new opt-in accreditation pathway, so counsellors would be able to work in publicly funded clinical roles for the first time.

‘‘The mental health and wellbeing of New Zealanders is a priority for this Government as is addressing workforce shortages across the health and mental health system,’’ Little said.