GUEST BLOG: Dave Macpherson – Public Scrutiny on Mental Health starting to get under Govt’s skin
A recent leaked report from a meeting of ‘Directors of Area Mental Health Services’ (DHB Mental Health bosses) shows that strong scrutiny by families of suicide victims and others badly affected by poor treatment is impacting on the Government’s mental health services, and on public perception of poorly managed and often ineffective mental health treatment.
In perhaps a direct attack on my family, the Report states that “DHB leaders are worried about interest groups who repeatedly call for inspections and enquiries and allegedly run ‘personalised social media campaigns targeting individual clinicians, service leaders and staff’, according to mental health issues reporter Jess McAllen.
The truth is that hundreds (literally) of families in this situation around the country are refusing to accept the glib, bureaucratic responses from services responsible for harm to family members, and are fighting back in a public, determined and persistent way, through both social and mainstream media. Many of these families, and community organisations they have begun or joined are themselves linking to support the work of each other.
At the same time, some pretty damning statistics are coming to light – not the least being the record number of ‘official’ suicides in the last year; 569, with a commentary by the former Chief Coroner that this may be the tip of an iceberg, with many other deaths not being listed as suicides simply as a result of bureaucratic legal processes. For instance, the death of our son Nicky Stevens is not a listed suicide – and my family is courting a legal slap on the wrist for even suggesting that’s what it was!
A recent post we put up on our son’s Facebook page (‘Nicky Autumn Stevens’) about the number of suicides, including a simple but stark graphic showing the ‘569’ number, was viewed by a large 130,000 in just 2 days. The public ARE interested in mental health issues, and a hell of a lot of them have seen the problem at close quarters.
Mainstream media itself have also started picking up on both aspects of the mental health issue – with considerable coverage of both individual cases (e.g. the recent Ashley Peacock one in Porirua), and of some of the systemic issues such as the post-earthquake mental health crisis in Christchurch. Some of the horror stories coming out are could be used as the plot for a remake of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
The public sector union movement is also – belatedly, some might say – starting to focus on poor staffing and training levels in mental health services, and inadequate facilities; putting pressure from another angle on their DHB employers and Government funders.
The mental health medical fraternity, health bureaucrats and their political masters are unused to the scrutiny they are under and unsure about how to respond, other than to continue to maintain the ‘emperor’ is still fully clothed.
On the one hand, they deny there is any systemic problem, while at the same time they pump money into a series of short-lived PR splashes like the 2015 ‘one in five’ campaign, using big ‘names’, designed to ‘normalise’ mental health issues.
The Government and its health and medical bureaucrats are at best only papering over the cracks.
There hasn’t been a full, independent review of mental health services in this country for 20 years. Until there is one, where the community has a real chance to have their voice heard, we and the other families, the media (social and mainstream), the unions, and more enlightened health professionals will continue to fiercely scrutinise the mental health system and the people and organisations accountable for it.
Lives are literally at stake.
Dave Macpherson is a Hamilton City Councillor and mental health advocate who became involved after his son was failed by the mental health system. He is standing for the Waikato DHB. TDB supports his candidacy.
Kia kaha, Dave.
Lots of chipping away for a long time is needed, but eventually they fall.
Good on you Dave, Jane and family.
As usual, when the public want action, the public have to make a FUSS!
Keep going …..
BIG hugs.
Kia kaha!
Penny Bright
About time NZers faced up to suicide and its causes. Nearly 10 years ago our youngest son killed himself and my attempts to criticise the official line on suicide ran into a the brick wall of bureaucratic silence/hostility.
That’s why I watched the TVNZ program The Hard Stuff on Suicide last night with more than a little interest.
It was a mixed bag in my opinion.
The low point was Nigel Lattas appeal to the authority of leading academic Professor Beautrais. She pushed the official line that suicide is a ‘complex’ problem and needs strict rules to make talking about suicide ‘safe’. This included silence on everything about suicide that may cause ‘harm’. The official definition of ‘harm’ means causing suicidal thinking and suicide itself.
Unfortunately this closes down discussion and involvement of those most affected by suicide, the survivors from active involvement in stopping suicide for fear they are doing ‘harm’.
The ‘harm’ argument was used by the government to shut down Yellow Ribbon in 2005. This was a private initiative of survivors to set up student run suicide support in schools. It was very popular and spread to many schools. However, involving young people in suicide prevention without official oversight by the research establishment and medical profession was used against Yellow Ribbon to attack it and force it to disband.
Yet, there is no doubt that Yellow Ribbon was on the right track because the best parts of the Hard Stuff program were the segments that told us about the activist group set up by survivors that involved young people in suicide education, and the family which decades after the daughter attempted suicide finally sat down to talk about it heart to heart.
Suicide will never be overcome until young people who are most at risk take responsibility for caring for one another and in doing so take charge of their lives. That way we will move from a culture which fears suicide which calls into question the meaning of life itself. We have moved from a mainly religious belief about life to a bureaucratically defined alienated life under capitalism.
We are overdue to reject both these for life based on mutual understanding and mutual aid.
Here’s my response to the wall of silence and the killing off of Yellow Ribbon following the death of my son. https://situationsvacant.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/talking-about-suicide/
Yes, I agree. I lost my son 15.5 years ago and was ‘invited’ to be part of professor Beatrauis study….Quite frankly I do not believe any of this academic ‘study’ has achieved anything in 15 years ! What have they achieved ? What has it cost ? I am a proactive person but struggled to find any support of any kind like I needed and eventually realised there is nothing to support ‘heart and soul’ healing for those bereaved by suicide. I think this also applies to people stuffing depression and mental illness as well. I have started a community initiative called Anam Care Care Centre which I am beginning to introduce around NZ with the Reveri Harp being the tool of choice to reach ‘heart and soul’
with people grieving and it has begun to have Reverie Harps winging their way to different regions of NZ.
This link gives us something to ponder given the propensity for Big Pharma to push its drugs onto GPs for anything from a itchy nose to ‘having a down day’. Is mental health deliberately compromised from conception: https://newsununity.com/2016/08/20/drastic-300-rise-in-babies-born-already-addicted-to-heroin-opioids-painkillers/
This link gives us something to ponder given the propensity for Big Pharma to push its drugs onto GPs for anything from a itchy nose to ‘having a down day’. Is mental health deliberately compromised from conception: https://newsununity.com/2016/08/20/drastic-300-rise-in-babies-born-already-addicted-to-heroin-opioids-painkillers/
Another addiction drug is for children diagnosed with ADHA : http://www.naturalnews.com/052954_Big_Pharma_amphetamine_drugs_Adderall.html