Forensic mental health services in the Midland region will be getting a $51 million funding boost over the next four years, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey announced at Waikato Hospital this week.
The funding will see 10 new acute inpatient beds at the Henry Rongomau Bennett facility in Hamilton, and eight new “step-down” beds for transitional care delivered by non-government organisations.
In his announcement, Doocey said his top priority was to increase access to mental health support for all New Zealanders, no matter who they were and no matter where they lived.
“We know that many of the people in the prison system have mental health and addiction challenges,” Doocey said.
“Ensuring access to timely forensic mental health services can reduce people’s risk of reoffending, reduce pressure on the department of correction staff, and create safer environments within the prisons.”
The Midland health region includes the areas serviced by five former District Health Boards: Waikato, Lakes, Hauora Tairāwhiti, Taranaki and Bay of Plenty.
Doocey said the region was experiencing both an increase in prison populations and in the prisoners’ need for mental health care.
Starting with a $5m investment in 2025, followed by $13m, $15m and $16m in subsequent years, the boost would also create two new community wraparound support teams with funding to attract and retain specialist staff.
“The shortage of forensic beds has caused delays in access to effective care, creating issues throughout the forensic rehabilitation system,” Doocey said.
“This funding will improve the flow of patients from forensic beds to stepdown beds and should have a positive knock-on effect for other services around the country.”
The $51m was from capital funding allocated to the “Making the Care System Safe – Improving Mental Health Inpatient Unit Environments" initiative in budget 2025.
Doocey said the forensic mental health team at Waikato Hospital “do a great job” at managing the flow of patients whether they were referred from the courts or having a psychotic episode from the prisons.
“Forensic beds are some of the most expensive beds when we look at funding them through the health system because of the level of care and how unwell our patients are,” Doocey said.
“The advice I’ve been given is the wait [list] is around 10 people, so being able to scale up this new facility and provide 10 new beds will take a lot of pressure off that waitlist.”
Doocey said the 10 new inpatient beds he mentioned in his announcement would be additional to the increased capacity promised in the new Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre currently under construction.
“We’re looking forward to that opening at the end of next year.”
Waikato Hospital mental health clinical services director Rees Tapsell said the announcement was “fantastic”.
“There are about 10 people currently sitting in a prison in our region, acutely mentally ill, that we cannot admit because we do not have a bed.”
Tapsell said the new funding would also allow forensic mental health services to increase their presence in prisons.
“Legally and morally, we don’t have the ability to compulsorily treat people in prison,” Tapsell said.
“If you have a mental illness and you’re in prison and you’re prepared to take treatment, then we can treat you. We can maintain you in a prison setting.”
But if you were somebody who had become so unwell that you didn’t see the need for treatment, and it was usually that population of people who were most acute and required the most intense level of intervention, those were the patients who had to come into a hospital, he said.
“It’s those people that are sitting on the waiting list.
“Ultimately, as you might imagine, that has an effect not only on forensic mental health services, but on general mental health services right across the region.”
Tapsell said the funding would make a difference.
“The challenge now of course is the process of recruitment and trainings and upskilling everybody.
“But at least now we’ve got an opportunity to do that. So that’s a challenge I’m quite happy to accept.”
Maryana Garcia is a Hamilton-based reporter covering breaking news in Waikato. She previously wrote for the Rotorua Daily Post and Bay of Plenty Times.