Insane killers: The devastating fallout from untreated psychosis
Around one-in-ten homicides are carried out by someone suffering from a treatable psychotic disorder. Experts say that’s unacceptable. Mava Moayyed and Kim Peacock spoke to families who have suffered as a result of the lack of treatment available.
More than 20,000 people in New Zealand are suffering from a psychotic disorder right now. The vast majority are never violent, in fact, they’re far more likely to be the victims of violence.
But a small group with key risk factors – including those with a history of violence and drug and alcohol use – can suffer extreme delusions, causing them to do the unthinkable to innocent people.
Between five and seven New Zealanders are killed each year by someone suffering from a treatable psychotic disorder.
Senior forensic psychiatrist Erik Monasterio told Sunday that at-risk sufferers are increasingly missing out on psychiatric care due to under funding, a lack of resources, and disorganisation in mental health services across the country.
“The very group who present the highest risks are not receiving adequate long-term treatments. My concern is that if the chaos continues, we will see more and more adverse incidents occurring,” Monasterio said.
He said it’s only become worse since the 2019 Mental Health Inquiry and psychiatric staff are leaving public service in high numbers, at a time when they are most needed.
“It is very sad for me to observe this decay in the availability of services. Remember that you can judge any society by the way it treats its most vulnerable and that is a question that New Zealand may want to ask itself at the moment.”
There is not a Kiwi alive who can be surprised that 1 in 10 homicides are committed by someone with a treatable psychotic disorder.
You know why!
We have utterly underfunded mental health, dumped these dangerous individuals onto their exhausted families with little to no resource and called that ‘Community Care’.
We point blank refuse to tax the rich to properly fund our social infrastructure and the mentally ill are the lowest rung on the lowest health ladder.
If we wanted to prevent this, we could by taxing the rich to properly fund mental health, but we choose not to because 1 in 10 murders committed by someone suffering from a treatable psychotic disorder is a perfectly acceptable price Kiwis are prepared to pay so they can fantasise about protecting future imaginary wealth from future top tax brackets they will never earn.
It is preferable for the majority of Kiwis to protect imaginary wealth from future top tax brackets than treat mental health properly to lower murder rates.
That’s who we is now. That’s what we are.
Old Zealand beats New Zealand.
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and still you don’t address the elephant in the room – LAbeen blew 1.9 billion doing sfw for mental health. So yeah, let’s tax those evil rich people to blow more money delivering sfa.
That is why they lost so badly.Completely out of touch with how people want their lives run .We do not like working hard so some expublic servant can be paid twice as much as a consultant and write another report with no actual outcome.This was the Labour’s legacy.
Bullshit meaningless biased right wing tropes Trevor. Neo liberalism is a major culprit here, along with 40 years of neglect. Take the blinkers off. For once.
This isn’t really about NeoLiberalism though, it’s about baseline incompetence. Labeen blew $1.9 billion on nothing except PMC strategy writers interviewing themselves about what it takes to do mental health right.
There were no outcomes.
But really, how hard is it to train more clinical psychologists, bond them for 8 years, and get them working in the community?
Same with doctor shortages.
In both cases there are more applicants from kiwi’s than places, so why not do it?
Its just pure incompetence, and a stupid wealth tax will make the situation worse.
Labeen and Martyn are asking the wrong fundamental question. Their premise is that the poor are poor because the wealthy steal all their money, but this is not true. They should be asking, why are the wealthy actually wealthy? The focus is at the wrong end of the equation.
Shifting that focus would move the dialog from victim mentality to enabling people to be successful.
Sadly the marxists fools see only oppositional hate, not solutions.
ok. ” Labeen blew $1.9 billion on nothing except PMC strategy writers interviewing themselves about what it takes to do mental health right.” Bullshit. No facts here.
“But really, how hard is it to train more clinical psychologists, bond them for 8 years, and get them working in the community?
Same with doctor shortages.”
Very difficult. Both professions need time for growth, learning and deployment and require demanding skillsets and training over long periods of time. And then, you know, there’s the free market that is, oh I don’t know NEOLIBERALISM that will take these people offshore because we don’t fund things well enough. And why not?
Because of some bullshit called “tax cuts” and NEOLIBERAL dogma about trickle up and small government is good.
Sadly the right are intent on some fundamentalist authoritarian crusade to concentrate wealth and fuck us all over.
Correct Daryl. Mukefacts fails to ask the most fundamental questions. Why was a mental health inquiry even required and why was 1.9 billion even required if Neonational had done even a half decent job in 9 years in health? They are solely responsible for underfunding and thus responsible are for those deaths.
So Nationals tax cuts coupled with public sector spending cuts probably won’t improve this situation.
MSM will help National cover it up, so people don’t realise there’s a situation.
Peter “ So National’s tax cuts… won’t improve this situation”. Precisely. And with slippery Bill English, the would-be architect of a user-pays privatised health service in there advising them, the outlook is very grim for health challenged people.
We AO/NZ’ers don’t need to waste time taxing the hyper riche so much as needing to go up them with a royal commission of inquiry then asset strip and redistribute as required. Why? Because to become hyper riche you first need to be psychotic. If you think you need to fuck everything over on the way to becoming a multi-billionaire then you need more help than your potential victims do and in AO/NZ we’re all but for a few are victims of the monetary anemia caused by rich parasites sucking away at our infrastructure and resources.
So. We know what’s needed. Why then don’t we get it? I can tell you. It’s because the first rule of accumulating vast, unearned wealth is to subvert politics and politicians. If our politicians weren’t on board to the gravy train we’d already have wealth taxes and restrictions on how far the rich can go up the arse holes of our politicians who by their very definition are power hungry greedy psychopaths.
It all comes back to us poor fuckers. We’re responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of our politics and our politicians and our politicians know what their employment contracts state. Serve the people. All the people, starting with those most vulnerable and working up. NOT! Start with the rich then fuck the rest of us. That’s not how a democracy works. Like any single thing everywhere. [Things] are only as strong as the weakest element and the strongest element one can have within a democracy are workers unions. Without unity you have no power, no resistance and no future, as can be seen.
“The vast majority are never violent, in fact, they’re far more likely to be the victims of violence.”
A pointless and highly misleading statement.
As the vast majority of all people are not violent, but as a violent person can attack many others, everyone is much more likely to be the victim of violence than a perpetrator. The important question here is whether or not the mentally ill are MORE likely to be violent than the rest of the population. I believe that the answer to that is obvious.
I don’t think spending $1b on online counseling by people on the end of the phone reading from a script is a practical option. They’re not qualified clinicians and or lowly certified influencer do-gooders working for cash outcomes.
Kanohi the Kanohi by experienced practitioners is the right solution. Woke Mental Health ‘Google Healers’ ain’t the way to go.
The elephant is likely larger than most think. 1.9 billion a drop in the ocean – although I can see where you’re coming from, funding misdirected and misspent. Let’s see if the new coalition can do any better.
The mentally ill need to be taken out of self care in the community and back to supervised institutional care until there is adequate wrap around services to prevent them from going postal.
Again with the kindness model not being fit for purpose.
… and the Dept of Mental Health are also quietly disposing of their bodies WITHOUT notifying family nor asking families wishes. They have the coroner release the body right back to them and take over from there. My personal experience this year, with my sister. DESPICABLE.
The real estate pimps can pay more tax on each house they sell. The goes directly into a mental health fund for buyers. That people can apply for grants into.
If you tax more, Wellington will just hire more comms staff with the money and not do anything.
james. How right you are. And the politicians will bleat about addressing health issues, when the bottom line is they are ratbags, all of them, accepting that people live in ongoing physical and mental pain, and terrible things happening to others because of this, right here in New Zealand – oops Aotearoa, New Zealand. It’s a leadership issue, just like Oranga Tamariki, and the failing deviant Education System, and Health and Safety, with moral fibre, integrity, responsibility, accountability, all conspicuously absent. One good person could make a difference, but that’s not on the horizon either.
Now ask yourself.. was Jacinda actually a National plant? There is no way she would have been so cruel for no reason… what did they promise her?
Brilliant Tinker and I suspect you believe Luxon will ride in on his white horse and rid us of mental illness once and for all!
Remind me again why 1.9 billion was required again if Nationals previous 9 years in power was such a success for mental health?
Tinker Jacinda plays according to the WEF handbook.Their mission statement provided her glossary.
It has been this way since the introduction of neo-liberal policies in 1984. Most NZers aren’t old enough to know anything other than what we have now. They need to know.
Watch this. Seriously. Watch this fantastic documentary. And spread it around.
Netflix.
Saving Capitalism.
https://www.netflix.com/search?q=saving%20ca&jbv=80127558
Saving Capitalism is a 2017 documentary film directed by Jacob Kornbluth and Sari Gilman, following former Secretary of Labor and Professor Robert Reich, speaking about the current state of the American economic system, and presents ideas on how to “save capitalism”.
Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than any other monetary system.