Opinion: When it comes to mental health, the Government is failing us

Health authorities have announced a delay in the decision whether to close an in-patient mental health unit at Hillmorton Hospital, in Christchurch. Photo / Supplied

OPINION

Yesterday, health authorities announced a delay in the decision on whether to close an in-patient mental health unit at Hillmorton Hospital, in Christchurch.

There are 15 beds in the Tupuna ward and there’s a proposal to close it because Hillmorton only has about half the number of staff needed to run it.

Tupuna is what’s called an “extended care unit”, and is for people with mental health issues who need care longer than people who can be looked after at the acute inpatient unit.

It provides 24-hour care - but it’s facing closure because of staff shortages. And the plan, at this stage anyway, is to shut it down and move patients into community placements or other in-patient units.

About 13 staff are affected but they will all be offered other roles if the closure goes ahead.

Not surprisingly, a lot of staff at Hillmorton have made submissions on the proposal and so the Health Authority says it needs more time to consider what staff have said in their submissions and to then decide whether to go ahead with the closure or not.

All this is happening at the same time as we learn today that, despite investing $1.9 billion into mental services in the 2019 Budget, the Government has failed to deliver any new beds for acute mental health services.

On Newstalk ZB this morning, Health Minister Andrew Little was explaining it away, saying that the most demand is coming from people with low to mid-range mental health issues and he reckons the Government is delivering on that front.

But is it really? I mean, how many times do we hear people saying they have to wait months to get an appointment with a mental health specialist? You may have been in that boat yourself. Or someone you know and love might be in that situation.

And so, because of that, I didn’t find Andrew Little’s reassurances all that comforting or believable.

Where I did believe him, was when he said that the hold-up in delivering these promised mental health beds was due to projects for new facilities getting bogged down by bureaucracy.

I know a bit about this, because I’ve had first-hand experience of how these projects - especially in the public sector - get snowed under by every Tom, Dick and Harry poking their oar in and pouring over Gantt charts and multiple business cases and consultation. And, in health, it seems particularly bad.

So, yes minister, I believe you when you say delivery of these projects has been a dog’s breakfast.

But what these faceless people who are responsible for these beds not being delivered, who go into the flash offices every day sipping on the flat whites, who sit through endless planning meetings - what they need to realise, is they have blood on their hands.

So too does the Government. Because Finance Minister Grant Robertson made all the right noises when he delivered the Budget back in 2019, and banged on about putting mental health front and centre of the health system, not keeping it on the edges but front and centre.

And not just that, he said “to every mother, father, brother, sister or friend who has seen their nearest and dearest suffer, the Government has heard the call and has responded”.

But, in the time since he trotted all that out, how many people have we lost in this country because their mental health issues have become too much for them?

How many people’s lives have been turned completely upside down, because of what their family has had to deal with - either through the loss of someone or just trying to get help for someone.

Not to mention the people themselves who, through no fault of their own, find themselves suffering from mental health issues and just don’t know where to go or what to do.

Which is why, when I consider whether the Government has failed us when it comes to mental health, I have to answer yes.

Because if it wasn’t failing us, we wouldn’t have this situation where $1.9 billion was promised but - three years down the track - the number of acute mental health beds is exactly the same.

If the answer wasn’t yes, we wouldn’t have Hillmorton Hospital looking at closing down its 24-hour extended care unit.

And if the answer wasn’t yes, we wouldn’t have experts telling us that we have a mental health crisis in this country.