Mental health inquiry
On a knife edge:
Asa teenager, Jessie Stanners attempted suicide despite loving her family ‘‘to pieces’’. ‘‘I didn’t want to leave them, I just wanted the pain to stop.’’
As a teen, Jessie Stanners attempted suicide. She remembers waking up in the ambulance with her mother holding her hand.
‘‘I love my family to pieces. I didn’t want to leave them, I just wanted the pain to stop,’’ she said.
More than 10 years later, the
28-year-old Christchurch woman says she is happier than she has ever been. The anxiety that afflicted her as a teenager growing up in Taranaki is under control, and she has found empowerment in sharing her story.
Suicide and its toll on families and communities was one of the reasons for a sweeping inquiry of mental health and addiction in New Zealand, the results of which were publicly released in a more-than 200 page report yesterday.
Among the 40 recommendations made by the panel was a target to reduce suicide rates by 20 per cent by
2030, urgently complete the national suicide prevention strategy, and establish a suicide prevention office.
In specifying a target, the panel stressed the country should aspire toward zero suicides. Stanners said the measures were a step in the right direction, and welcomed the increased discussion about mental health.
‘‘It’s been made abnormal for too long, and it’s just a normal thing,’’ she said.
Canterbury health sector figures have also welcomed the report. District Health Board chief executive David Meates said it was heartening to hear increased funding had been signalled to expand options for people needing support.
Mental Health Advocacy and Peer Support service director Fiona Clapham Howard said the report identified the ‘‘missing middle’’ of people who were not getting treatment and support.
‘‘The hospital doesn’t want to know unless it’s at the really, really high pointy end,’’ she said. ‘‘Many, many more people in distress are getting turned away because they’re not meeting that clinical threshold.’’
Clapham Howard supported a key recommendation to significantly expand access to mental health and addiction services, but said more work should be done in the community and by NGOs instead of at hospital level.
The largest NGO provider of health and addictions services for Ma¯ ori in Canterbury, He Waka Tapu, receives about 3000 new referrals every year and employs 65 fulltime staff.
Chief executive Jackie Burrows said she was optimistic the report would result in improvements, but said the Government had a lot of work ahead.
The report’s recommendation for a ‘‘whole-of-government approach to wellbeing’’ would reduce inefficiencies created by the different expectations of various government agencies, Burrows said.
She wanted to see ‘‘a wellbeing plan’’ across the country providing ‘‘a solid foundation of where the needs are’’ with the same ‘‘broad targets’’.
The call for more regulation of alcohol, and drug reform was something He
Waka Tapu had wanted to see for a long time.
Burrows said local councils needed to control the proliferation of liquor stores and the Government should support them with regulation.
Decriminalising drug use would make recovery more accessible and prevent further harms to whanau, she said.
‘‘If Dad’s in jail for growing marijuana, it impacts the whole family for years.’’
University of Canterbury mental health and nutrition research group director Julia Rucklidge said it was ‘‘refreshing’’ the inquiry panel had been ‘‘bold and honest’’ about the failures in the mental health system, but she was disappointed it did not consider ‘‘new innovative therapies’’.
Rucklidge welcomed the call to repeal and replace the ‘‘barbaric’’ Mental Health Act, which enabled clinicians to force a treatment on an individual against their will and deprived them of their human rights.
Violent assaults against staff at Hillmorton Hospital this week were not surprising given the poor therapeutic environment and restrictions of the Act, she said. ‘‘If you think about it you are caging people up at a very vulnerable time. So to me it’s not very surprising we end up with aggression and violence in those settings.’’
‘‘People in distress are getting turned away.’’
Mental Health Advocacy and Peer Support service director Fiona Clapham Howard