This week I want to talk about mental health which is a major issue for us in New Zealand.
In fact, one in five New Zealanders will experience a mental health disorder over their lifetime and nine per cent of Kiwis say they experience psychological distress each and every month. It is a big challenge and problem to solve.
The Government promised to transform mental health services and announced $1.9 billion for mental health. However, mental health professionals across New Zealand are concerned progress on the Government’s promise to transform the mental health system has got worse in the last four years.
Frustratingly, the Government has stopped annual reporting on the quality of our mental health services and has delayed releasing reporting around their progress on implementing the 38 He Ara Oranga Mental Health Inquiry recommendations.
With both the 2018 and 2019 Annual Reports being delayed and the Mental Health Foundation’s recent comments that it feels as though it’s being ‘gagged’ by the Ministry of Health, it looks as though the Government is avoiding being held accountable for its progress, or lack thereof.
It’s not alright to sanitise a report because it contains ‘negative’ statistics about suicides, waiting times and even the number of people accessing specialised mental health services.
These reports are a way of benchmarking the investment put into mental health and the results of those investments.
Setting targets and measuring progress against them is important. We need to know what programmes are working and what are not so we can do more with the money and get it spent supporting the things that will ultimately make a difference to improving New Zealanders’ mental health.
For example, average wait times for child and adolescent mental-health services have ballooned over the past four years under the current Government.
Counties Manukau District Health Board data shows that wait times for those of us in Botany and east Auckland have increased by 41 per cent.
Every day of delay accessing those services makes a big difference, and does not help the children, young people and their parents get the help they desperately need.
Results and outcomes, not announcements, matter the most.
- Christopher Luxon, MP for Botany
