An Ipsos poll shows younger adults spend more time thinking about their mental wellbeing than other age groups. Photo / 123rf
Labour’s promised $2 billion transformation of mental health care is failing and needs to be urgently rethought, the head of the Mental Health Foundation has said after a survey revealed alarming findings about distress among young adults.
“To me, it basically paints a picture of a response to mental health that’s failing completely,” said Shaun Robinson, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, in response to polling by Ipsos that suggests many young Kiwi adults are struggling to cope with the stress of daily life.
“It’s a major wake-up call to politicians,” Robinson told the Herald. “What’s happened in the past has failed and what is happening now is failing. The transformation of mental health is failing. Things are overall getting worse, not better.”
Robinson’s criticism was not confined to Labour — the problems have been building for decades and National also has a poor track record on mental health, he says — but will add to mounting pressure on Jacinda Ardern’s government in an area it identified as one of its top priorities.
Ipsos surveyed 1000 adult New Zealanders in September and then compared the results to data collected in 34 other countries. The polling underlines the strain the cost of living crisis in particular is putting on many Kiwis, in addition to widespread concerns about the lack of support for people struggling with mental health problems.
Ipsos’ data shows there is now a stark divide in mental wellbeing between young and old New Zealanders, with people over 50 much less likely to say they’ve experienced significant distress, depression, or suicidal intention than those under 50.
Younger adults spend a lot more time thinking about their mental wellbeing and are more likely to report experiencing poor mental health outcomes, the survey suggests. Ipsos said the time that young adults in New Zealand spent thinking about mental wellbeing increased this year and was higher than the global average.
Seventy-three per cent of respondents aged between 18 and 34 said they had been so stressed in the past year that they “could not cope with things”, compared to just a third of those over 50.
More than 60 per cent of those young adults said they’d felt sad or hopeless almost every day for a couple of weeks or more. And 40 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds had “seriously considered suicide or self-hurt” in the past year.
Concern about personal finances was the main source of stress for people under 50, ahead of jobs and relationships with family and friends, while the main issue affecting mental wellbeing for people over 50 was sleep.
More than a third of the respondents under 35 told the pollsters they had taken time off work or school to deal with a personal mental health issue in the past year, and around one in five had taken time off to support a family member or friend.
Twenty-seven per cent of the young adults had seen a therapist or psychiatrist in the past year, while 21 per cent took medication to help them deal with a mental health problem.
In a global comparison, New Zealand scored poorly on perceptions of whether mental health issues receive the same level of care in the health system as physical conditions.
Fifty-nine per cent of Kiwi respondents agreed that physical health is treated as more important than mental health, a figure that has increased 7 per cent since last year and was the second-highest out of 35 countries, behind only Portugal.
That finding in particular will be disappointing for Labour given that it put mental health at the centre of its 2019 Wellbeing Budget. Ardern’s government promised to transform the country’s approach to mental health and to rectify disparities caused by decades of underinvestment.
However, it has faced increasing criticism as those ambitions have proven difficult to achieve. Across the sector, there is growing frustration that deeply entrenched problems such as fragmented and inconsistent services, lack of support for people in crisis, and drastic shortages of skilled workers do not seem to be improving, while the number of people who need help is increasing.
The worsening mental health of young people is a particular concern. In recent months, a major investigation by the Herald has exposed how the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated an already troubling rise in anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders and other conditions among children and adolescents, overwhelming the specialist services that treat them.
“We have a mental health crisis that is really of a similar scale to Covid-19,” Robinson said, and it requires an “immediate national rethink”.
Robinson says the Mental Health Foundation was frustrated that Labour “came out with a hiss and a roar” after the national He Ara Oranga inquiry called for an overhaul of mental health care in 2018, but then “just completely lost the plot”.
“Government after government after government just keeps failing, and what we have now is a mounting mental health crisis,” he said.
Robinson cited three reasons for the inability of successive governments to fix mental health care: politicians do not really understand mental health, in his opinion; they underestimate the scale of the problem; and they do not make detailed plans for long-term reform.
In Labour’s case, he said, this has been compounded by the distractions of the coronavirus pandemic and, more recently, the amalgamation of 20 district health boards into a national health system under Te Whatu Ora/Health New Zealand.
“That agenda has completely now overtaken transformation of mental health,” Robinson said. “No matter what they say, it has. It’s sucked all the oxygen in the room out.”
The Mental Health Foundation wants both major parties to commit to urgent action to address the mental health crisis before next year’s general election.
“Sadly, unless we get political and system leaders who make that paradigm shift then my prediction is that these sort of figures we’re seeing in the Ipsos report are actually going to continue to rise,” Robinson said.
“I think governments have a responsibility for the welfare of the people of the country, for the wellbeing of the people of the country, and these figures are basically showing that they’re failing and they’re neglecting their duty as our leaders.”
Andrew Little, the Health Minister, said: “In 2018, this government set up an inquiry into mental health and addiction services. The report of that inquiry, He Ara Oranga, said there was a real need for services in the community. I’m not sure that this new report tells us anything we weren’t told four years ago.
“And in those four years we have invested significantly, in the Access and Choice programme that’s providing mental health support to hundreds of thousands of people through GP and community health services, through schools, in prisons and through the Ministry of Social Development. We get the importance of good mental health support. That’s why we’re investing so much in it.”
Matt Doocey, National’s mental health spokesman, said: “We now see inflation and the cost of living is not only the number one issue financially in New Zealand, but it’s actually taking a huge mental toll.”
If it is an emergency and you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
For counselling and support
Lifeline: Call 0800 543 354 or text 4357 (HELP)
Suicide Crisis Helpline: Call 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
Need to talk? Call or text 1737
Depression helpline: Call 0800 111 757 or text 4202
For children and young people
Youthline: Call 0800 376 633 or text 234
What’s Up: Call 0800 942 8787 (11am to 11pm) or webchat (11am to 10.30pm)
For help with specific issues
Alcohol and Drug Helpline: Call 0800 787 797
Anxiety Helpline: Call 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY)
OutLine: Call 0800 688 5463 (0800 OUTLINE) (6pm-9pm)
Safe to talk (sexual harm): Call 0800 044 334 or text 4334
All services are free and available 24/7 unless otherwise specified.
For more information and support, talk to your local doctor, hauora, community mental health team, or counselling service. The Mental Health Foundation has more helplines and service contacts on its website.
Much of the South Island is set to plunge below 0C tonight and tomorrow.