By CATHERINE MASTERS
Johnny Manu's killing of ACC worker Janet Pike last year brought strong warnings that Auckland's Mason Clinic - which cares for the criminally insane - was bursting at the seams.
Yesterday, the chief executive of the organisation which runs the clinic blasted the Government and funding agencies for not heeding those warnings.
Dr Dwayne Crombie, from Waitemata Health, said the unit officially had 84 beds but was squashing in 103 occupants and had a further 12 on the waiting list.
"We have been running about 110 per cent for probably much of the last six months but it's got even worse recently.
"Basically, we are putting more in a room than they are designed for and putting them here, there and everywhere.
"It's not acceptable and we don't consider it safe."
Nobody seemed to understand that building more prisons meant a need for an increase in the number of secure mental-health beds.
The problem was exacerbated by the fact that even when the clinic was overfull, it could not refuse if a judge ordered that a person be taken there for forensic assessment. "It's just bizarre and we can't get the Health Funding Authority to actually acknowledge that we need more beds.
"The result is you've got people out on the street who are acutely in need of treatment and observation and assessment.
"A lot of these people we manage with a spell in the in-patient ward and then we manage them out in the community. But I mean, how many do we have to go over our 84 beds when someone's going to say enough's enough?"
In July, David Chaplow, the clinic's director, said it was managing a further 60 people like Manu.
The clinic was far too small for the demand, he said then.
Peter McGeorge, director of mental health services at Capital Coast Health, said the Wellington region needed 30 more secure beds.
The Health Funding Authority could not be contacted.
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