Mental health services underfunded

I HAVE recently come out of a mental health unit, where I stayed for two weeks, for my own safety. While I was there I noticed just how hard the nurses worked, with some working 12 hour days. I believe my experience shows the sort of problems affecting our underresourced health services, particularly our mental health services. Lack of resources puts our healthcare workers under pressure to deal with more and more people with less and less time. I am one of the lucky ones; I was strong enough and I knew where to go for support. If I had waited for support after my fabulous care in the unit, I would have ended back there. I believe the reason for the lack of time medical staff put in, in looking at my files, checking medications, and lack of outside support is all due to lack of funding for the mental health system.

There are so many of us in the country fighting to be heard but because there is no money for the correct resources it’s not happening and this is why the suicide rate is so high in New Zealand. If New Zealanders really care about those of us living with mental illness, this needs to be an election issue and we need to vote for parties who are prepared to increase resources for health services, especially mental health.

I am very encouraged by Labour’s commitment to injecting $43 million into mental health within two years, focused on increasing resources for GPs, providing coordinators to help strengthen working partnerships between hospital services and GPs and better access to counselling. I want better services for myself and others living with mental illness and I’ll be voting on this issue in September.

Bronwyn Jago

Dunedin