Mental health woe follows lockdown

Gluckman says many Kiwis’ futures ripped away

The mental health of many New Zealanders will hang in the balance during the coming months as the social repercussions of lockdown take hold.

The warning comes from across the board and on the same day Youthline said under 25-year-olds were struggling with the negative impacts of Covid-19 on their lives.

The former prime minister’s chief science adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman, told the Epidemic Response Committee yesterday that many Kiwis have had their once certain futures ripped away from them.

There would be a lot of newly vulnerable people, Gluckman said, giving an example of a 55-year-old travel agent now out of work and without a future, who would join New Zealand’s already disadvantaged. The International Labour Organisation says the relationship between economic health and mental health is inextricably linked.

Internationally previous economic downturns and crises have been linked to growing mental health problems and spikes in suicide rates.

In the EU every 1 per cent increase in unemployment was associated with a 0.8 per cent rise in suicides for people under 65 years.

Welfare agencies and foodbanks have reported record numbers of requests as the Covid-19 pain bites.

Gluckman said the fallout from lockdown would be an increase in fear, anxiety and frustrations.

The primary need now was to support the social services providing help and solutions to our communities and the focus had to be on how to mitigate the effects of the crisis, he said.

His sentiment was echoed by mental health advocate Jane Stevens, whose 21-yearold son Nicky took his own life in 2015.

“I’ve had several people make contact with me asking where they can get help and families who are worried about their young people, and young people who are in crisis.”

She agreed with Gluckman that a more inclusive conversation was needed to address what she called a major emergency.

“We’re faced with a crisis on top of a crisis because we already had a crisis. And our hospital wards might be empty but I know for a fact that our mental health wards aren’t.”

Stevens said the national mental health inquiry, completed in November 2018, together with lessons from the Christchurch earthquake, should have put New Zealand into a better position to help those left vulnerable following lockdown.

But she said even she struggled to get access to the services people needed.

“So what are we going to do about it? We talk about reacting quickly with the economy but let’s start doing the same thing for the mental health of our people.”

Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson said our biggest threat to mental wellbeing going forward was economic impact.

“Things like losing jobs, businesses failing and not being able to feed your family are going to have a huge impact and it’s completely natural that people are going to become stressed in those situations.”

But he said a surge in depression wasn’t inevitable and there were things we could do.

“It’s about skills not pills, and our behaviour and lifestyle choices have a very big impact on our mental health.”

Robinson, who lives with bipolar, spoke openly about his own struggles during lockdown.

“In the early stages, I became anxious, depressed and was quite unwell . . . I decided I needed to double-down on my behaviour — so staying in touch with friends, spending some time in my garden and appreciating the fact there were more birds around — the little things that gave me happiness.”

Youthline chief executive Shae Ronald said change was unsettling and destabilising and the lockdown had resulted in a high level of uncertainty and a lack of usual routine.

Youthline has set up a Givealittle page to help cover a $300,000 funding shortfall.