From next February, GPs and nurse practitioners will be able to diagnose and treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Now, they need the written recommendation of a psychiatrist or paediatrician to start prescribing ADHD medications, and this can takes months. Here, Alexander Longstaff shares his story of what these delays can mean to a person with ADHD.
Longstaff is a film editor from Argentina whose career has taken him across the globe. Diagnosed with ADHD while working in Australia, he returned to Buenos Aires to reconnect with family before resettling in Auckland - the city he now calls home.
“It all began like most false autumns do: calm skies, quiet air, everything pretending not to fall. A friend offered me a desk in his office. I had a bed to sleep in, a routine to tinker with, and the feeling, however faint, that I might be building something again. I told myself I was making a comeback. That the quiet days in Auckland, far from the chaos of Sydney, where I found myself in a downward spiral, were the chrysalis I needed.
I was wrong.
The economy was flat. TV jobs had dried up like old paint in a forgotten tin. I sent emails that echoed back with silence. The rhythm I was trying to build collapsed in slow motion, and soon I was staring down a simple but devastating truth: I was running out of medication. And New Zealand had no plan for people like me.
Two and a half weeks before I took my last Ritalin, I went to the doctor – early, prepared, responsible. He nodded thoughtfully and presented what seemed at first like a minor hurdle: “You’ll need a psychiatrist’s sign-off.”
Okay, I thought. Fine. Let’s book one.
Except you can’t. Not without waiting seven to nine months. And not without paying more than you’d pay for a small car.
The clock began ticking louder.
My brain had been understood in Argentina and again in Australia... but now that didn’t count.
I’d brought a stash from Argentina – prescribed medication for ADHD and severe anxiety. A quiet contingency plan sealed inside a Ziploc bag. I thought it would buy me time. It bought me a countdown instead. I began visiting the GP daily. He tried everything. He called, emailed, pleaded. He was kind. But kindness doesn’t get signatures. Signatures get signatures.
The people he was speaking to – someone at the Ministry of Health, or wherever these decisions are made in times of crisis – wanted test results. Evidence. Something quantifiable. And so my GP turned to me and asked, “Have you got anything official?”
But there were no tests. Not in the traditional sense. My diagnoses were clinical. Observational. Conversations with people who knew what to look for. My brain had been understood in Argentina and again in Australia, both times without a bubble sheet or a multiple-choice form. But now that didn’t count.
An anxious wait
When the last Ritalin pill hit my tongue, it was like watching the sun dip below the ocean knowing it won’t rise again for months. The real withdrawal didn’t arrive in one dramatic wave, it arrived in whispers. Restlessness. Dread. The kind of static that fills your head when you know something’s gone terribly wrong and no one’s coming.
By day four, I was in freefall. Suicidal thoughts didn’t knock. They walked in, familiar as ghosts. The kind I hadn’t seen in more than two years. I held the line, barely. No relapse. No emergency clonazepam. Just pacing. Crying. Praying.
I told myself this was a test, and I hated how much that felt true.
Out of desperation, I went to the hospital. After all, every clinic I called had said the same thing: “If it’s urgent, go to the ER or dial 111.” So I did what I was told. I walked in and waited.
Six hours later, a doctor looked at me like I was a spreadsheet with smudged ink.
“In order to prescribe this medication,” he said flatly, “I need the signature of a local psychiatrist. Someone who’s assessed you here.”
“I have ADHD,” I said quietly. “Severe anxiety too. Both formally diagnosed. I’ve been stable for over a year on this treatment.”
He nodded once, disinterested.
“That’s not enough,” he said. “I need a local authority to approve it.”
I just stared at him. My jaw clenched.
“But you said you have clonazepam, right?” he asked, like we were discussing leftover Panadol. “Why don’t you use that in the meantime, until this gets sorted?”
I didn’t answer.
New Zealand had no plan for people like me.
Back in the house, I laid on my back and counted the spots on the wooden ceiling. I didn’t take the clonazepam. I didn’t want to disappear; I wanted my fucking life back.
My mother, frantic from half a planet away, mailed me a month’s worth of Ritalin. A bridge. A lifeline. A whisper of stability. It was on its way – floating through airspace, Customs and hope.
That week, as my hands shook and my brain burned with static, I passed a billboard from the Ministry of Health of New Zealand.
“Mental Health: You’re Not Alone. We’re Here to Help. Call Us.”
Beside the text was a beaming stock photo of someone who looked like they’d never waited more than three minutes for a flat white. Perfect hair, soft smile. The kind of face you’d cast for a toothpaste commercial, not a crisis helpline.
There was no room for laughter. Not that week. Not when I was white-knuckling every hour just to stay afloat. The sight of that sign didn’t amuse me, it disgusted me. The irony wasn’t clever. It was cruel.
Here I was, spiralling, armed with two psychiatric diagnoses, official documentation stamped by a New Zealand embassy, a GP backing me daily – and still, nothing. No meds. No care. No urgency.
That billboard didn’t just miss the point. It mocked it. It felt evil in its simplicity.’
Broken system
That day, I called New Zealand a developing country.
And in that moment – in that one moment – it was.
Once I was over the hump, I found something I hadn’t expected: the slow, almost embarrassing awareness that I wasn’t special.
Addicts often believe we are. We think we’re the exception to the rule – too smart to overdose, too charming to get caught, too “functional” to fall apart completely. I clung to that belief like a buoy for years. Even in sobriety, I carried traces of it. That the system wouldn’t break me. That my paperwork, my story, my effort would make me visible.
It didn’t.
And yet, I lived.
Not because I outsmarted the system. But because people caught me when it dropped me. A friend. A doctor. My mother. Elisabeth. Even my landlords – who barely knew me – offered patience, not pressure. The soft net of care I didn’t always believe I deserved.
There’s no moral in that. No tidy bow.
Only this: I am not invincible. I am not immune. I am just… here.
Still standing.
But what about the ones who aren’t?
What about the ones with no paperwork to wave, no advocate to plead, no mother fighting through DHL declarations and Customs, or friend texting through the dark? The ones who can’t shape their pain into a story – or worse, can, but have no one willing to hear it again?
I got through because I had help. But help shouldn’t be a privilege. It should be a baseline.
It feels broken to the person in crisis. But from a policy and design standpoint, it’s functioning exactly how it was built – with gatekeeping, underfunding and indifference baked in.
So no, the system isn’t really broken.
It’s working exactly as it was designed to.
While officials debate a policy change, changes to ADHD prescribing have taken longer than originally proposed. Pharmac says this is because there is a shortage of some ADHD medications, so delaying the changes should ensure there is enough supply. It will also allow more time for training to be developed for doctors and nurse practitioners who can prescribe the stimulant medicines methylphenidate, dexamfetamine and lisdexamfetamine, medicines used to treat ADHD.