Segar House is a rare silver bullet – it must be expanded, not shut down!

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Matt Doocey - Minister of knowing nothing

Of all the shitty things this Government has done, this may well be the worst…

Auckland intensive mental health service proposed to close

The proposed closure of an intensive mental health service is “insulting nonsense”, according to one advocate, and news to the minister in charge, who found out on the day The Post put in a request for comment.

Te Whatu Ora – Health NZ proposed earlier this month to close Segar House ‒ its Auckland-based tertiary level specialist psychotherapy service ‒ and redistribute the services and funding.

Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey had not been told of the proposal until Thursday.

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In the change document, which was leaked to psychotherapist, broadcaster and former Segar employee Kyle MacDonald, it proposes to disestablish the programme, re-invest the resources into community mental health teams and redeploy staff.

“It’s insulting nonsense,“ MacDonald said. ”Frankly, I think it’s going to put people’s lives at risk.“

…Segar House is one of the very few jewels in the crown of our mental health service.

I have known people whose lives and wellbeing were only achievable in a specialist centre like Segar, what is being proposed here is to smash the last remaining crown jewel so that Te Whatu Ora can sprinkle that smashed jewel as far and wide as possible because of intense budget and hiring pressures.

That the Minister was even aware of the decision is shameful.

I think this is a terrible, terrible, terrible decision that will cost far more money and damage many, many, many lives.

Segar House is one of only 2 live in centres like this, the other is in Dunedin.

It is a 24 hour lived in programme that helps the most damaged in society learn to live in the community!

These are people with enormous mental health issues and problems, if they are not in Segar House they are losing it in public and either damaging themselves or others.

You see their cost explode in ACC, the Police call outs, the ambulance call outs, the hospital costs and the judiciary costs!

Segar House is one of the few silver bullets we have, it desperately needs to be expanded NOT SHUT DOWN!

The argument that these desperately broken mental health patients will be somehow magically saved in the community by splitting Segar House up and spreading the specialists around is a fucking joke! These patients have ended up at Segar House because the Community can’t help them!

These patients will immediately choke up the crisis services and that will simply metastasise negatively in a. billion different ways.

Shutting Segar House is an obscenity of an idea, and it must be opposed at every step.

Labour, the Greens and the Māori Party must all make an immediate statement that they will rescind this decision and immediately seek to re-establish a far larger Segar House

This is a terrible, terrible, terrible idea.

 

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah but…No but…
    Surely by now you must understand that, that which we have that we think is governance isn’t that. It’s private enterprise having its way with us without the kissing. And it’s been like that for over forty neoliberal years now. Anything and everything done to us isn’t by or for us. It’s done by rich, unelected private individuals behind closed doors in secrecy for them who pay our political reps huge money to do THEIR bidding while we don’t need to vote at all but, by law, we must identify ourselves to our abusers because enrolling is mandatory. And if your jaw’s still slack while you or you think about that then for Gods sake, wipe your nose then wear a condom because there are way too many of you dumb shits out there already.
    Idiocracy. A prophecy dumbass.
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
    And since you or you probably can’t read you could watch/listen this.
    The Invisible Doctrine. George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison
    Trailer to etc
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeLNRzqCpCE

  2. Imagine the huge numbers of deaths during the pandemic if this government had been in office at the time.

    The onslaught of austerity policies will result in all public services being run down to critical levels and will take decades to recover if at all. Meanwhile New Zealanders will be at risk as they were when these polices were implemented by the National government in the 1990’s.

    Closing Seagar is criminal and will lead to more loss of life. And its being done while we are losing so many of our people to suicide.

    • yes it would have been carnage if this lot were in charge .30k deaths would be on the low side .And the economy would be half of what it is now with thousands living on the street and the health system would be mostly closed .

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