Data shows despite Govt’s $1.9b mental health budget no improvement in total beds for patients
There are the same number of total beds for acute mental health patients as there were in 2017, despite nearly $2 billion being allocated for the mental health sector, new data has revealed today.
Currently, there are 608 beds available for acute mental health patients.
Newshub reported tonight this number fluctuated briefly in 2021 reaching a peak of 619, but has since declined back to 608 – the 2017 level.
In Budget 2019 the Government announced $1.9b for mental health, with $235 million set aside for building mental health and addiction facilities.
This came after it was revealed acute mental health units were running at capacity.
Health Minister Andrew Little told Newshub it was “taking way longer than it should do, but there is progress now evident”.
Why can’t Labour force these Ministries to actually deliver policy?
The fundamental difference between Labour and National is that National MPs are all management psychopaths who excel at bullying others for results where as Labour wants to give everyone a cuddle at a hui with a vegan menu in Te Reo and side-order of pronouns.
The public service fear National, they don’t fear Labour and so when Labour pour billions into the Wellington Bureaucracy, they laugh and use it for more glass palaces.
The constant shit fight between Mike King’s Gumboot Friday and Wellington Bureaucrats highlights all that is wrong in NZ politics.
Mike is hated by the Wellington Bureaucracy for criticising their incompetence and making them look callous.
Mike is offering counselling services at a fraction of the price that the Wellington Bureaucracy offers and because he’s done such an excellent job of exposing their vested interests, he will never ever receive any money for his proposals because that’s what happens when you cross the Wellington Bureaucracy.
The horror of our suicide rate gives us a glimpse behind the ‘she’ll be right’ facade of our culture and the dark torment of an alpha male macho mental landscape that is terribly fragile.
Our under funded social infrastructure, our ‘me first’ consumerism, our 30 years of neoliberal mythology, our disconnection from one another, our untreated pain, our lack of hope from grinding poverty in a first world country, our damaged masculinity, the intergenerational consequences of colonialism, our unspoken rage culture, our inability to express emotion beyond anger – all of this demands questions we don’t want to hear as a society and the shame of suicide continues to hide and smother any healing.
In a society that has no religious faith and all the cultural maturity of a can of coke, the bonds which keep us attached are frail and disconnected. In our fetishisation of individualism we have lost the central part of the human condition – connection.
We have traded in our interwoven threads of whanau, friendship and kin for a race where no one wins.
The reason we can’t talk about suicide is because we can’t stand to talk about the dark treacle of self hate and loneliness at the core of consumer culture. We don’t dare confront the hollowness of our existence on these far flung crags of rock for fear of what we will reveal about ourselves.
Damaged individuals competing for a self identity too fragile for the storms and tempests of life.
Thanks to neoliberalism, we are further from each other than ever before.
Look at the manner in which our suicide rates jumped after the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s, where we moved away from the communal towards the individual…
…we huddle frightened on these lonely rocks at the end of the world and slowly one by one slip off into the swallowing dark. Until we are prepared to confront many of the individualism-over-all myths and rebuild our tattered communities, our suicide rate will remain reminding us of our whispered deceptions.
We refuse to ask the why of suicide because we are too frightened to know the answer is a reflection of the shallow and lonely community we have become. Instead we reel off a list of phone numbers whenever we dare mention suicide as if that means a fucking thing.
We are broken and no one wants to admit that.
Mike King swims in this pain constantly and it has hurt him as much as it has hurt us which explains his anger at the Wellington Bureaucracy.
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They can’t get anywhere because they never have any plan, it’s that simple.
Light Rail to Mt Roskill by 2021. That sentence encapsulates Labour. Someone thought of a catchy phrase at election time, no idea where, how, why, they get into power, some money is put up to create it, it’s foisted off to some unsuspecting ministry to work out the plan, outline and detail. And it failed! Who would have thought?
If politicians like Labour think a catchy phrase maketh the reality, they are children.
But look at Wille. There’s a guy with no catchy phrases, well maybe 3 Waters, who toils away in the dark and get things done!
100% Ada.
The Professional Managerial Class in Wellington, specifically Health NZ, are an overpaid bureacracy who are so self important they believe they are the Health system. That Drs and Nurses are just pests they have to deal with.
Mike King has showed them up. because he was all about providing a service for people. You know, like counselling sessions.
The state of inpatient mental health services is a disgrace. Seriously ill people sleeping on matresses…….
Andrew Little should be sacked. Having listened to Shane Reti on Q and A, I believe he should be our next health minister, (if not our PM).
In terms of health never has so much money $11.1 billon over four years to establish health NZ been so wasted.
So can anyone show us precisely where the money went and exactly what improved?
No?
That is gross incompetence of both government and the public service.
It warrants a corruption investigation, 1.9 billion is factors worse than &55 million to not build a fucking bike bridge.
Where did the money go? My guess pay rises, additional layers of management, recruitment consultants, high paid locums, temp nurse agencies and consultants to think about what to do with 1.9billion.
So no additional beds.
Any additional nurses?
Any additional psychologists?
Any additional psychiatrists?
Any additional social workers?
“The fundamental difference between Labour and National is that National MPs are all management psychopaths who excel at bullying others for results where as Labour wants to give everyone a cuddle at a hui with a vegan menu in Te Reo and side-order of pronouns.”
By ‘psychopaths’ you mean people that can get things done?
Given they were given a broken system by Nact, it make take many many years and billions more to fix it. Whilst they ran our health system down, Nact massively increased our population without funding it. That’s a fact, sadly lost on many on this site.
So how long do they need to actually improve something Bert? And not make it significantly worse? Three terms, four?
God you’re pathetic, still believing that this government can achieve anything after witnessing the last five years of their ineptitude.
Keep waving those pompoms Bert…
What a complete knob Mickey whoever. You are a cock. Here’s a question, how long does it take to destroy a health system 3 years, 6 years or 9 years? Fuck you are pathetic. You Bob and coward Kraut should get a room. Why weren’t you blaming National at the time when the rest of the country could see they were destroying our health system. Anyone with a brain could see it unfolding. Obviously you weren’t in that group.
Maybe cast around. Mr King is only one of thousands of agencies involved in mental health. I can tell you categorically after decades our Trust has done the hard work, proven our approach and effectiveness and thriving thanks to Labour’s funding expanding from a bathroom sized room to now having 3 buildings in Hamilton to accommodate client and over 60 employed and contracted specialists.
We’ve battled through Nick Smith and the idea that mental injury is not ACC, we’ve been through the shit cover up for no funding called the ‘ social investment ‘ model and now are a nationwide organisation with NGO agencies across NZ with a national body governance. Our services are free, counselling, therapy and whole wrap around support thanks to this government’s support and close collaboration with Govt agents such as Police, MSD and ACC.
I think you are right to remain anonymous. If gummint realise how satisfactorily you are getting on they will decide it is time to cease funding as you can obviously manage on your own. Anyway they don’t want successes, they are used to snivelling neediness from people who can be translated as useless wasted individuals who can never amount to anything they consider worthwhile and will drop off their branch sometime soon they hope.
Aaaa GW, after a few decades you’re strategy is still the same. Like a school yard bully zipping across the playground to any you perceive as a new kid and piss marking your territory.
All that pent up shit when others don’t fit your view.
Just say the word and we’ll book you in for a knowledge tour. We cover the full gamut not the mischaracterized, narrow definitions and solutions I’ve read above of what is a mental health need. And yes even the nonsense that people with mental health issues have no insight. FFS!
You can even pop in for just a friendly chat or plan your very own pathway forward; food, shower, a job, social connections if you’re lonely, sports or hobby, mirimiri, provide placements for undergraduates to excel in training, group therapy or 1 to 1 counselling of all models, (for every bottom feeder, ramraider, bad youth or the elite it’s free ) ; help go into battle if you’re feeling stigmatized, oppressed or abused, support you in court as a victim, literature to support your needs, support for all ages including your loved ones and kids while you’re going through a hard time……. you know all the wrap-around stuff that supports you out living in the community for the other 168 hours a week post counselling session and even give people a ride to attend.
Definitely not using the paltering headline making ‘ x number of acute hospital beds’ as the definition of failure or hospitalization fixing mental health issues.
You either want the Natz slick car saleman’s top down social investment using IDI data to stereotype whole groups as pieces of shit from birth to quantify funding (not funding); or as is the case now you put government funding and resources into supporting a huge network of grassroots agencies who know their communities needs and work in collaborative responses such as the ISR initiative. You could also believe Nick Smith’s 16 sessions and you’re magically fixed #BS model – Or you can have long term input and support whenever the need arises.
The underhand slight is unappreciated.
We’re not annonymous, we’re a Not- for- Profit registered Charity meeting stringent multiple Audits and lawful criteria; actually changing lives for long term betterment with hundreds on the books at any one time.
Come on in and meet
real people to debunk your theory…
” snivelling neediness from people who can be translated as useless wasted individuals who can never amount to anything they consider worthwhile and will drop off their branch sometime soon they hope” … !
The Front Lawn (Don McGlashan and Harry Sinclair) put out in 1989 Oh How You Doing. It seems to me to reflect the empty social intercourse that people perhaps particularly males employ. Notice how one doesn’t really want to know how the other is getting on, doesn’t have any empathy for his ‘friend’ who is in a low place emotionally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfLiHhuZMtg
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