Kirsten Bangs “couldn’t ignore the calling”. Despite needing chemotherapy for her auto-immune disease, she skipped two rounds to spend a week in Hawke’s Bay helping after Cyclone Gabrielle.
She ended up in hospital for one night as her disease flared up while on the trip earlier this month.
“I am stubborn and if I didn’t go then I wouldn’t have been physically able to because after chemo you become cytotoxic.”
Now she is helping fundraise to get back there again to help on the mental health front.
Bangs was part of a contingent of five Rotorua mental health professionals who took leave from their day jobs to support those impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle. Plans to send more help hinge on a drive for more volunteers and a Givealittle page to raise further donations.
Bangs said it was heartbreaking to realise some people had already taken their own lives following the cyclone.
“The day we flew in there was a [suspected] suicide in the community where we were staying. That was pretty tough.
“People just need to talk to people. Male farmers already have a high statistic in New Zealand and I believe this is just going to put more pressure on them and make it worse.”
Bangs, a mental health professional and Top Staff Solutions Rotorua managing director, said it was hard to describe the devastation the trauma response team encountered when they landed in Hawke’s Bay. The team included three registered social workers and a GP.
The stories they heard were harrowing and she was fearful about the lasting impacts on people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Those the team spoke to were haunted by the noise of “houses popping out of their foundations, trees cracking and glass smashing”.
“Some of the stories were incredible. I spoke to one gentleman, he was driving with his children in the back seat and the water got up to window level. And the kids screamed ‘dad we’re too young to die’.
“That was pretty hard.”
Another man hugged a tree for seven hours until he was rescued.
Children’s emotions were also being triggered by the sound of rain and helicopters.
“When it’s on your TV you can turn it off but when you are surrounded by miles and miles of mud and silt ... they are slapped in their face every time they open their eyes.”
Bangs’ family’s connections with Hawke’s Bay stretch back six generations. Family members had lost land, animals and all their fences in the disaster.
Rotorua registered social worker Lisa Rimmer said going to Hawke’s Bay had “changed” her and she was going back to help.
“What stood out for me was the people. Their humbleness, their resilience, the fact that they could still laugh and get up in the morning and carry on when everything was just so horrible.”
She had a background in helping children with trauma, displaced children, addictions and mental health and said even casual conversations with people could be helpful.
“It’s something that we did last time, myself and one of the other girls went for a drive with a dad and his son. And they showed us their story. And it was really powerful because it gave them back the power to tell the story.”
The contingent from Rotorua worked in conjunction with Mike King from I Am Hope and was based in Eskdale but supported people in Puketapu, Rissington, Bayview, Waipawa and Waipukerau.
Now Bangs has put a call out to any health professionals willing to go to Hawke’s Bay later this month, and is also trying to secure funding or donations for the cost of the estimated $4000 trip that was last time sponsored by a local businessman, three non-funded entities and Top Staff Solutions.
I Am Hope founder Mike King said after a major event like the cyclone, people transitioned through four stages that included “thank God, we survived” and a celebration of heroes. That was followed by the gratitude stage when people flocked to help.
“Then comes stage three when there are no more bodies to shift, there are no more bodies to help, suddenly some insurance companies aren’t paying out and there is still much work to do and you feel you have been abandoned. All the water has gone from Napier and the sun is out and they have moved on with their lives.”
But 10km down the road it is still total devastation that is out of sight, out of mind, which leads to the disconnect, he said.
“People start feeling angry and resentful and forgotten. And finally, we’re moving into winter, which is when the real trouble is going to start because rain is no longer a weather event in the minds of our young children and our elderly, it is a potentially fatal occurrence.”
King said that was where counselling was going to be needed and while the Government had an emergency response team that responded straight after the tragedy that included mental health workers already at breaking point - “it is crucial that we bring in as many outside mental health volunteers to come in and support”.
I Am Hope set up a flood relief fund which at last count had $100,000 in the account for mobile counsellors on the ground.
“The Government is not funding our organisation one red cent. They are funding their specific little teams ... The help that is going to be needed is over the next three to five months.”
He believed that “there are no white horses coming”.
“No one is coming to the rescue. So if you really do want to help, the only way we can get that help there is to help to do it ourselves.
“By donating to the flood relief fund, you can be assured 100 per cent of that money will go where it is supposed to go to the mental health professionals who are out there doing the job at the coalface.”
King said there had already been suspected suicides.
In response, Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said an initial $3.2 million had been made available to provide psychosocial support to communities impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle.
“Since 2017 this Government has built a primary care mental health service from the ground up. In 2019 the Government invested $1.9 billion in mental wellbeing in Budget 2019 – ($883 million over four years for mental health and addiction).
She said 2.66 million people were now covered through primary care providers and could go to their general practice and see a health professional on the same day.
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A critically injured pedestrian was taken to hospital.