Roy Heather: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Roy Heather: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:13261] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I shall start where the National Party spokesperson on health left off and talk about productivity which of course is down. When the Health Committee did the financial review of the Capital and Coast District Health Board—[ 
Interruption 
]—perhaps the member would like to take a call instead of shooting insults across the floor of the Chamber. When we did the financial review of the Capital and Coast District Health Board I asked in detail about its mental health services. I was not trying to get at that board because in fact mental health services across the country are a national disgrace. Ward 27 at Wellington Hospital has had its fair share of problems although it does not experience those problems on its own. However in recent times it had a patient who left the ward and climbed into the tigers’ cage at Wellington Zoo. Soon afterwards that incident was followed by the Buckle suicide which resulted in an inquiry. More recently after leaving the ward a patient jumped off the sixth floor building at Wellington Hospital and received serious head injuries. 
Two weeks ago I highlighted the problems with regard to overcrowding at Wellington Hospital’s mental health unit and I am at pains here to say that that is happening not only in Wellington but at many mental health units around the country. Overcrowding is a particular problem in Wellington but the Minister of Health has done nothing about it. In fact she said what a good thing it was that the extra mental health ward at Kenepuru Hospital closed in July 2002 without so much as a murmur leaving the Wellington region to cater for a population of 250000 patients with 30 mental health acute beds. Two weeks ago that ward was so full that it had 35 patients and others queuing up to go in so one patient was put to sleep for the night in the ward’s telephone booth—the room that is assigned for the telephone. The telephone was taken out and the patient was put in. This is a Government that prides itself on reducing the stigma experienced by those with mental illness. In fact it prides itself so much on that that it has spent just over $13 million to date on the Like Minds Like Mine campaign with flash television advertising and various other components to it. I would like to know and I would like the Minister in the chair the Hon Ruth Dyson to tell this House how making a patient sleep in a telephone booth for the night tells that patient that he or she is a first-rate and well-respected New Zealand citizen. It does not. It tells people that mental health is the poor cousin in the New Zealand health system and that they will be treated in that way. 
Let us imagine the public outcry if a child was put to bed on a mattress on the floor of a children’s ward in any hospital in this country or if someone with a broken leg was put in similar circumstances in a telephone booth for the night. There would be a public outcry about that. The relatives of the patient would go straight to the local newspaper. However when that sort of situation happens to a mental health patient there is not a murmur from this Government. The Minister of Health is well aware of those problems. In replying to question for written answer No. 5684 this year in relation to the Capital and Coast District Health Board the Minister stated she had been advised that 35 patients were in the ward that night and two beds were set up in a room usually designated for telephone use—one in the women’s lounge and one in a doctor’s interview room. Are we not treating mental health patients well in this country! 
What has the Minister of Health done about the problem? She has thrown more money at it. That has not resulted in any more treatment. The Hon Ruth Dyson answered an oral question in the House last week by saying that since 1999 an extra $321 million has been allocated to mental health. This year about $800 million will be spent on mental health—almost 10 percent of the health budget. What are the mentally unwell getting for that? Three percent of the population suffers from a serious mental illness requiring treatment. How many are treated? The figure is 1.6 percent of the population and that figure is down from 1.7 percent in the previous year. It is a disgrace that 1.4 percent of the population of this country who suffer from a serious mental illness are not receiving any treatment at all. What is the Government doing about it? It says that it is ring fencing that money. It is a disgrace!