Mental health help questioned

A MASTERTON mental health clinician has questioned treatments reported by clients and former clients of the Wairarapa Hospital mental health service.
Bruce Robinson, director of Wairarapa Community Counselling Centre (W3C) in Masterton, was speaking in response to a report last week in the Times-Age. The report raised concerns by mental health service staff about barriers facing low income Wairarapa sufferers of mild to moderate mental health problems and of the scarcity of complementary mental health services in the region.
"A number of people come to us from the mental health service complaining a lot about their medication ?V the real effects and side effects of medication that either fails to deliver what it promises or makes some consumers feel worse," he said.
"One client described his medication as being like a chemical prison that stops him from being who he is. Another said that 'if my doctor had to take this medication, he would never prescribe it again'."
Mr Robinson said similar reports have been fielded worldwide and are documented in cross-discipline clinical research conducted outside of the pharmaceutical industry.
"There is a growing swell of evidence emerging that a lot of medication not only doesn't help but may make matters worse for a consumer, especially when that person attempts to withdraw from neuroleptic drugs," he said.
Mr Robinson also questioned whether statements from mental health service staff regarding the move away from church-based counselling services in the region is a reference to the loss of services formerly offered at Sedgley Family Centre in Masterton.
"Before the centre closed, MHS staff would either refer directly or more often they would suggest their consumers refer themselves 'as they didn't have to pay'. Sedgley would accept them under an in-house policy of not turning people away ?V and this would give the mental health service the green light to discontinue involvement," he said.
W3C was established in 2005 after the closure the year before of the Sedgely. He said W3C ?V which offers a wide range of psychotherapeutic, psychiatric, and counselling services out of the Departmental Building in Masterton ?V is made up of former staff from the Sedgely centre.
Mr Robinson said the majority of complaints from hospital mental health service patients focused on two key aspects of treatment.
"These are problems associated with prescribed medication regimes and a strong sense of consumers having their views of what is happening in relation to the problems they are experiencing, routinely ignored or dismissed and used as evidence of 'lack of insight' when those views are different from those of MHS staff.
"This often leaves the person with the feeling they are seen as personally incompetent, failing to respond to treatment and unable to contribute toward decisions regarding their own treatment," he said.
Mr Robinson said, with regard to service costs being a barrier for some sufferers of mild to moderate mental health problems, that W3C has an expectation clients should "make a financial contribution to the cost of their counselling based on their ability to pay ?V the service is not free".
He said "significant help with payment" was available through funding such as CYF, the PHO's To Be Heard programme, and Work and Income New Zealand - for beneficiaries or Community Service Card holders.
Family Court is also able to fund counselling through a range of providers, he said, "where families are experiencing significant relationship problems".
"If a person seeks help and is genuinely unable to make a financial contribution, W3C works with the person, regardless. No one is or has been turned away. W3C regards this as a humanitarian issue at the highest level," he said.
"I'm also aware that other services operate 'sliding scale' fee structures that make services accessible as a matter of priority."
Mr Robinson said alternate Wairarapa counselling services are on hand although "there is nothing surer that with a baby boomer aging population explosion near at hand" psycho-geriatric service availability will become a critical problem for the elderly in the near future.
"At secondary and tertiary levels the services are there right now, but for people in that aging group who don't meet diagnostic criteria for access to those services there is very little help on offer.
"Many older people who come to counselling report ongoing struggles with depression, citing alienation from family, and separation from community through loss of role, as significant contributors to that depression.
"Suicidality is another issue reported and although this does not mean the impulse is acted upon, there is a risk for people in this age group, as suicide statistics nationally and worldwide suggest."
He said W3C is part of a network of community based providers of mental health oriented services which include SF, Richmond Fellowship, King Street Artworks, and Te Whare Atiwhai, Turret House and many individual providers in private practice.
???nFor more information on services offered by W3C: Wairarapa Community Counselling C0entre situated on the 3rd Floor of the Government Department Buildings in Masterton call 06 3775716.