Mentally ill paying cost of Government's shortcomings
Health Minister Tony Ryall’s pressure on health budgets has meant that District Health Boards are spending fund for mental health elsewhere the Green Party said today.
Dedicated mental health funding was put in place to enable DHBs to build services to meet the needs of vulnerable New Zealanders.
This followed the development of a 'Blueprint' for Mental Health services by the Mental Health Commission in 1998, following a string of incidents revealing the inadequacy of services.
"DHBs have consistently failed to meet their targets for mental health treatment under the Blueprint for Mental Health," Green Party Health Spokesperson and former DHB chief executive Kevin Hague said.
"The last report on the issue in 2006 showed that only one — West Coast District Health Board — out of the 21 DHBs had hit the target of 3 three percent of the population receiving mental health services. The national average was 1.8 percent.
"The situation is only getting worse.
"Until such time as mental health services have sufficient capacity to do the job New Zealanders need them for, then funding to build the capacity of these services needs to remain strictly ring-fenced.
"The test of a civilised society is the way in which it treats it’s most vulnerable. New Zealand's consistent failure to meet the needs of even those most severely affected by mental illness is a damning indictment on successive governments.
"Now Tony Ryall seems to be signalling that it is acceptable to trade off run down mental health spending so DHBs can spend the money else where.
"This leaves the mentally ill and their desperate families — some of the most vulnerable in our whole society — to meet the cost of Mr. Ryall's roll back of health spending," said Mr Hague.
Mr. Hague said ongoing pressure on mental health services was in keeping with the loss of other services aimed at vulnerable groups. Mensline and the 198 Youth Health Centre in Christchurch were the two most recent services to be axed.
"There is an almost visible political calculation at work here: services aimed at those people with the least political clout seem to be those targeted for Mr. Ryall's axe. It is morally unacceptable, and the real cost will be paid by us all in the future,” said Mr Hague.
LINKS
Blueprint for Mental Health
http://www.mhc.govt.nz/users/Image/Resources/1998%20Publications/BLUEPRINT1998.PDF
Progress report on Blueprint
http://www.mhc.govt.nz/users/Image/Resources/2006%20Publications/ROP_2006.PDF