Police are attending significantly more mental health incidents in Northland than they were five years ago. Photo / NZME
Police are attending significantly more mental health incidents in Northland than they were five years ago. Photo / NZME
Northland police are attending 60 per cent more mental health events than they were just five years ago.
The situation has been exacerbated by significant under-resourcing in the mental health sector in recent years.
Northland police attended more than 2900 mental health incidents, including attempted suicides, last year.
Murray Fenton,the New Zealand Police Association's regional director for Waitematā and Northland, said police in the region had "absolutely" noticed the increase in mental health callouts.
"The demand for those calls on us now is far greater than it once might have been.
"The hardest thing with mental health is the time involved in attendance. The minute we're off attending a mental health incident, perhaps a family harm incident can't be looked at."
The number of mental health callouts (not including attempted suicide) that were cancelled before police attended doubled from 2016 to 2021.
Police are attending significantly more mental health incidents in Northland than they were five years ago. Photo / NZME
In 2016, just four out of a total of 386 callouts for attempted suicide were cancelled, but this rose to 25 of 636 calls in 2021.
The reasons for the cancellation of calls before police attended would be varied, Fenton said, and in some cases they would have been resolved without police intervention.
There have been attempts in parts of the country to ensure mental health staff are available to accompany police attending mental health incidents.
A scheme for a Co-Response Team (CRT) made up of ambulance and DHB staff as well as police to respond to mental health incidents that took place in Wellington was successful, according to a police media release at the time.
CRT trials are now underway in the Southern police district and Counties-Manukau, but not yet in Northland.
Fenton said the police can call on mental health professionals in other areas, but mental health resources in parts of Northland are limited.
"The ability [to call on mental health services] is there anyway, but dependent on where you are in the country.
"To have that luxury in a place like the Far North is not what it would be in Wellington or even Auckland."
Fenton said general under-resourcing of police was a major issue in Northland, particularly the Far North.
"For us in the Far North at the moment our biggest issue is staffing.
"We've got issues, obviously, with gangs, and to be able to police effectively we need the resources. We don't have that at the moment."
Another issue, he said, was the under-resourcing of the mental health sector.
"Mental health has been under the pump for a long time. If they don't have the resourcing we're going to be stuck getting their assistance when we're attending jobs."
Shaun Robinson, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation. Photo / Supplied
Shaun Robinson, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said there was a "massive hole" in support for people in crisis.
"The mental health-specific services are totally inadequate in terms of the resourcing to meet the demand so police have been the service of last resort.
"I think they do their absolute best to provide a sensitive and good service but they are not mental health professionals."
There could be a number of reasons why there was more demand on mental health services, Robinson said.
"Covid-19 and all the pressures that has created, economic pressures, fear, grief - all of those things are putting more pressures on people.
"Northland has a higher proportion of low-income, poorly-housed people. We also have failed to address adequately the impacts of colonisation and racism."
Robinson observed, however, that the increase in mental health calls was not confined to Northland, and was a national issue.
The number of callouts in Northland reflects a similar surge in calls nationally.
The annual report for 2020/2021 shows police attended more than 70,000 incidents around the country where a person was in mental health crisis or attempting suicide.
This was a 10 per cent increase from just one year earlier.
Police have been asked for comment, but did not respond by publication time.
