GUEST BLOG: Dave Macpherson – An MP discovers the mental health system is broken
During last week, Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis was reported in both mainstream and social media as having had a text and phone ‘encounter’ with a severely depressed man who had harmed himself and was contacting Davis to say “goodbye”.
Davis phoned him to talk him out of any further self-harm action, and arranged for the guy’s local MP in Dunedin South to urgently arrange for some care and support going forward.
At the time of writing this blog, Kelvin Davis’ actions successfully prevented an addition to the horrendous 569 annual suicide toll, but the stark truth of the matter is that this man will not be the only severely ill person suffering in this way at this time, with many of the others not lucky enough to feel they have anyone to call on. Hundreds will be facing those thoughts and internal battles as you read this.
Reading Davis’ Facebook post was instructive:
- First was the revelation to Davis that the mental health system had failed this guy; he wasn’t receiving basic treatment and support he needed to head off the thought that suicide was his best way out of a seemingly hopeless situation. The irony for me was that Davis, and every other MP currently in Parliament, has been written to by me twice in the last year outlining the dire problems facing the mental health system. Very few MP’s replied, and Davis wasn’t one of those. I know I’m not the only parent who has tried to communicate with MPs about this issue. Like many people, Kelvin Davis responded when a situation came about for someone he personally knew – the South Dunedin MP helped because Davis asked her to – and THEN they realised there was a systemic problem.
- Second was the response on Davis’ Facebook page from some staff working in the mental health sector. They attacked Davis for publicising the case and (so they said) making it harder to get more staff and resources into the sector. This is a classic response, that our family has also had from Henry Bennett Centre staff, where the staff are so ground down and defensive that they adopt the management perspective and become inadvertently used as management and Government attack dogs. Its a variation on the Stockholm syndrome, where the captives adopt their captors views and behaviour. Public sector unions have been complicit in this, although are hopefully now finding their voice could be an important counter to the status quo.
- Third was the despairing comment from Davis that he realised he had helped prevent an imminent suicide, but given that the ‘patient’ was probably being soon released back into a world that held nothing for him, he would likely end up in the same space in a very short time. Again we see this all the time – overstretched families and communities struggle to get short-term help from the mental health system for ill people, only for them to be pushed back out into the community well before they are well enough. Less than two years ago, a man was stopped by police and public from jumping off Hamilton’s main traffic bridge over the Waikato River, taken into the DHB’s Henry Bennett Centre for one night, released – with drugs – back into the community the next day; later the same week police again stopped him leaping off the same bridge and took him to the HBC where he had a whole two nights care before again being released. His body was found in the river some days later.
And what is the official response? The Ministry of Health, the DHBs and government-funded agencies like the Foundation for Mental Health never want to discuss individual cases; they never want to look closely at a clearly broken system, with suicide rates escalating, over-the-top staff shortages, inappropriate drug-only treatment regimes and growing community disquiet. They throw a few mill at ex-sports stars running PR campaigns and talking in schools to break down the ‘taboos’ about mental health and suicide – it could be good stuff IF it was leading to a comprehensive, community led review of the system, but there is no sign of the authorities agreeing to that in a hurry.
Dave, maybe a grassroots review would be good for publicity and education, but I don’t think it will tell us anything we don’t know.
We need support groups/networks in every town that are more than a phone contact to actively care for those who are desperate.
Yellow Ribbon was successful in the early 2000s in many schools in getting young people to take responsibility for helping those in need until Mental Health told them that in taking on that responsibility they were risking ‘harm’ to themselves.
Then they used the suicide of one of the ‘ambassadors’ as evidence of their ‘science based’ claim.
Typical negative, defeatist rationalising of inaction. Capitalism is not interested in workers welfare, we need to build our own.
Thanks Dave, You are absolutely right that the grassroots support groups are needed, BUT the demand for a full review is the icon around which some disparate groups and people can unite and develop political action on this issue. There is also the concern that the public health sector must be held to account for its failings; if the best people withdraw from it to run self-help organisations & networks, there will be many thousands still left to the ‘mercy’ of an unchallenged health bureaucracy. Part of the outcome sought from a review would need to be promotion f and support for such a movement – as an integral part of an effective, community-oriented mental health system; one not controlled by drug-pushing ‘professionals’!
But we were promised better more efficient & effective public health services our brighter future remember. instead our mentally ill are being treated like dirt and so are the poor and vulnerable of this country is this what we want in our country is this the country our ancestor fought and died for I don’t think so !
I think it’s EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that we discuss individual cases! To not do so is a tactic of the MSM, in which the homeless, disabled, elderly, and generally people outside of the wealthy/white/business community mainstream, simply become ignored statistics, or occasionally prostituted for feel-good stories.
It serves to help the sleeping middle classes maintain their ignorance about anyone and anything that makes them feel uncomfortable – especially helping those with “mental health issues”.
If we don’t discuss individual cases, we can never find out what landed them up where they are, nor can we understand their difficulties and offer compassion – and the system never has to change or improve.
IIRC, charities for instance, know that showing a story of a single poverty-stricken child, will endear readers and they are more likely to provide support; whereas if readers are shown an image of many poverty-stricken children, they will be ignored – because there is no connection.
IMHO forced treatment needs to be abolished, and it is an absolute moral imperative. Compassionate, community-based treatment needs to be the norm. We have to change our culture away from quick-fixes, and towards more locally-based, slower living, more socially in-tune with one another.
I recently read a story on MIA that you might like Dave, about a New Zealand man’s experience in our mental health system, for around, oh, fifteen years or so:
“Escaping the Grip of Forensic Psychiatry”
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/08/escaping-the-grip-of-forensic-psychiatry/