FFS!
I’m so angry.
Auckland mental health facility Segar House to close
An Auckland mental health programme catering for people with long-standing or chronic problems will shut down.
On Thursday afternoon, Health NZ told patients and staff of Rauaroha Segar House the service would close its doors.
Operating from its central-city Khyber Pass Rd base, Segar House is a publicly-funded, intensive programme that involves group therapy and is focused on allowing people to function in society.
The service had an allocation of seven full-time equivalent staff members, although RNZ was told it had been operating below that, and 10 patients at any given time.
Health NZ has been consulting on its proposal to shut Segar House since April. In its change proposal, it said not enough people were treated there and staff would be better deployed elsewhere.
Public Service Association national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said the union “strongly objects” to the closure.
“Despite the critical life-saving work done at Segar House, Health New Zealand has today announced its decision to shut this unique, much-needed service,” she said.
“This is terrible news for staff, those who rely on the specialist support offered at Segar House, and their loved ones.”
…Jesus wept, this is just such a terrible decision and it’s so fucking short sighted, and it’s going to hurt us so much more than the cost off running it!
Staff devastated at closure
The union called on Health NZ and the Government to reverse the decision and instead “commit to properly funding Segar House”.
“The team working at Segar House are devastated. They know this decision will have tragic consequences,” Fitzsimons said.
She said people who used Segar House’s services included those with horrific trauma and complex health histories.
“They can only come to Segar House when they’ve already exhausted all other options — it’s the last option for these mental health patients.”
…the people who work in this place are very, very, very special human beings who are able to offer a level of healing and care to those with chronic problems, and their hearts must be shredded with the knowledge of what is being destroyed here…
‘There isn’t an alternative’
Labour spokeswoman for mental health Ingrid Leary also said news of the closure was devastating.
“It’s very specialised and there isn’t actually an alternative. People should be able to get the care they need in the community, so what’s going to happen to those people now?”
She criticised the Government for focusing on cuts, and Minister for Mental Health Matt Doocey for not showing leadership.
Doocey has been contacted for comment.
“It’s painfully short-sighted as all communities need primary, secondary and tertiary levels of mental healthcare to some degree, and reopening facilities like this is much harder to do once they’ve been shut down — as the UK has discovered recently when trying to reverse similar decisions,” Leary said.
Staff and many patients have said no other programmes offered the same treatment.
Staff proposed an alternative plan to keep Segar House open and widen the criteria for those who could use the service, but this has not convinced Health NZ.
Changes introduced six years ago meant only people who had failed in other settings were eligible, although the PSA said a recent trial with lower admission criteria was successful.
Less than a week ago the PSA sent Health NZ a lawyer’s letter asking officials to reopen consultation on the proposed closure. The PSA said it was still seeking legal advice about this.
This came after Leary obtained correspondence that showed Segar House’s lease was to expire last year, before a last-minute extension, and no discussion about alternative venues.
Health NZ said lease arrangements had nothing to do with its closure plan.
Leary said today she was disappointed consultation was not reopened.
Health NZ has been contacted for comment.
An online petition run by the PSA, calling for Segar House to remain, has more than 2600 signatures.
…Of all the shitty things this Government has done, this may well be the worst!
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 unaware 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 centres like this, the other is in Dunedin.
It is a 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.
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, better resourced Segar House
This is a terrible, terrible, terrible mistake.
Our mental health infrastructure is pitiful and crumbling, destroying one of the few things that works is an obscenity and we need to stand with the weakest amongst us, and the people this special serves are the most vulnerable amongst us.
For shame National, for shame!
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All those green voters with nowhere to turn.
you are such a spiteful prick – your right wingless is just malice and manufactured righteousness. I bet you tell yourself in the mirror you are. good person. These people are the most damaged in society, yet all you do is mock. I genuinely am sorry for the people in your life.
Sure, Rightards&FarLys are impossible.
Over the years keepcalmcarryon has offered nothing so nothing new there.
Elections NZ specifies that Khyber Pass Road is part of the Epsom electorate as defined by the Representation Commission.
Public Service Association national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said the union “strongly objects” to the closure.
“Despite the critical life-saving work done at Segar House, Health New Zealand has today announced its decision to shut this unique, much-needed service,” she said.
“This is terrible news for staff, those who rely on the specialist support offered at Segar House, and their loved ones.”
If Public Service Association national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons is serious about keeping Segar House open rather than just moaning about it, she needs to lead a PSA campaign to save it.
Starting with organising a door knocking campaign across the Epsom electorate asking residents to sign a petition against the closure of Segar House.
Setting up petition tables manned by volunteers and organisers in the Remuera shopping mall and outside the local New World supermarket. Organising a march of their members and supporters from Segar House, down Kyber Pass, through Broadway to 27 Gillies Av. David Seymour’s electorate office to present this petition and demand Bavid Seymour be there to receive it.
Who knows the good citizens of Epsom may reconsider voting for the representative of New Zealand’s version of Doge.
How is Bob the first supposed to get the help he needs if they shut down Segar house?
Its is so hard to get ANY mental health services set up and funded in this country. More evidence free policy making from this shower. The idea of giving mentally ill people a short sharp shock is so tone deaf. I think we need to fund the study of sociopathic tendencies in right wing politicians. Just over a year to go now with any luck.
Although successive governments have underfunded mental health, Health NZ is blaming unsustainably low referral rates from both Auckland and Waitematā districts and the model of care not meeting the wider population’s needs. There is also a small number of patients. It looks like an operational decision that isn’t necessarily connected to funding.
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