Police ‘default’ mental health service as attempted suicide call outs jump 30 per cent
A 30 per cent jump in the number of attempted suicides handled by police is an indictment on New Zealand’s mental health system, the police union says.
Police responded to just over 18,000 calls coded as “threatens/attempts suicide” across the country in 2015-16, up from 14,000 in 2012-13.
Almost every region experienced an increase in such call outs over the last four years, with Bay of Plenty jumping 44 per cent and Auckland rising 16 per cent.
Canterbury, Southern and Tasman reported increases of 40 per cent, 43 per cent and 36 per cent respectively.
NZ Police Association president Chris Cahill said the increases were an “indictment on New Zealand’s mental health service”, which left mentally unwell people to be cared for by police.
“A lot of the time there’s nowhere to take them so they get brought back to a police station and held while an authorised officer is called out to assess the person . . . this can take a large number of hours at times.”
So our Police are being forced to become the ambulance at the bottom of our suicide cliff because the Government can’t afford any fences or ambulances.
This is why it sickens me when the National Party promise tax cuts to the already rich and wealthy property speculating middle classes. We have a 30% jump in suicide attempts on top of the horrific levels of suicide we already have and what is the Government promising to do?
Put more money into defeating suicide? Oh no.
Put more money into understanding suicide? Oh no.
Put more money into mental health services that deal with suicide? Oh no.
We have a Government that is happier to spend the money on tax cuts for the already privileged while leaving the vulnerable to rot.
It’s time to stand up and demand more from our politicians and it is time to change this bloody totally disconnected from reality Government.
If you vote National, you are part of this problem.
+100…another great Post!…where are Labour, the Greens and NZF on this?…and Mana?…and the disgraced Maori party?
Mana’s voice was loud and clear but since Labour colluded to trash them, now the MSM give Mana little space.
Mana was the opposition party to neoliberal sacking of our nation and should have been treated as an ally by Labour but it appears Labour is happy with neoliberalism.
I recently listened to Grant Robertson speaking to a small gathering to seek seek nomination for his seat.
Not a significant comment was given about the big issues, and an avoidance of past neoliberal roots in NZ being laid during the Lange era. Like many Labour spokes people no condemnation of what Labour did to NZ at that time.
The first question from the gathering was an earnest one asking what Labour was intending to do about the biggest immediate problem demanding a major shift from Labour and immediate policy and action – Climate change.
His reply was bullshit amounting to a thinly veiled fob off.
Then he followed that with a plea to not let the Green party vote in Wellington stuff up Labours chances.
So much for an MOU and what is happening that Labour continues to have its head in the sand, no doubt with behind closed doors National Light influences.
It’s clear POlice are doing the job of the mental health services but these sevices are not the reason suicide has jumped 30%. The real cause are the cruel policies of WINZ, Housing NZ and everything else this uncaring goverment has touched which are making more and more people so desperate that death is the only relief they can find from their lives.
Not to mention those with life long illnesses of a young age who are not getting proper medical care through affordable subsidised medicines and treated like shit by winz on top. No wonder a young diabetic friend of mine wants to give up on life before he even gets a chance to marry his fiance. The whole underfunding of benefits and pharmac fiasco really makes me boil .
“If you vote National, you are part of this problem.”
Ana a heap of those dark issues about to surface under this quietly seamlessly love for austerity against only the 90% of the dispossessed.
Damn you Nactional!
Go to hell all of you.
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