Mental health and NZ’s suicide rate — what’s happening?

Thursday, June 1st, 2017

Mike King is a straight-up sort of guy. He calls a spade a spade. I don’t know him well, but whenever I’ve spent time with him his authenticity has radiated from his heart.

King cares about mental health. He cares about saving lives. He cares about people. And he won’t waste his time with buck-passing and, as he calls it, “butt-covering”. Not when inaction means that people will die.

That’s the harsh truth when it comes to mental health. When the Government doesn’t step up, people die.

When struggling Kiwis follow the official advice and go to hospitals with suicidal thoughts only to be sent home a few hours later, people die.

When vulnerable kids are too ashamed to reach out and ask for help, people die. Families lose loved ones. Communities lose valuable members.

New Zealanders lose their futures because they fell through a net that was supposed to catch them before it was too late.

This week, King slammed the Ministry of Health over its new Suicide Prevention Strategy – a strategy that didn’t actually name any clear target in suicide reduction.

It used lots of nice words about pathways and healthy futures, combined with a peppering of te reo proverbs and concepts and some pretty graphics in calming shades of blue and green, but the target the advisory board had apparently agreed upon – a 20 per cent reduction in suicides over the next 10 years – was nowhere to be seen.

It had somehow disappeared, taking with it the benchmark against which to measure the success of the plan. Read into that what you will.

I can understand why King is angry. When you’ve stared down the barrel of suicide, the word tends to stand out any time you see it.

When you hear stories about people who’ve taken their own lives, it can feel like an electric shock running through your core. When someone close to you makes that terrible decision it affects you deeply.

If only they could’ve just held on a little longer, you think. Then comes the guilty, melancholic, grief-stricken sense of gratitude – it could’ve been me. Continue reading

Lizzie Marvelly is a musician, writer and activist, she writes columns for Weekend Herald. She was judged best general opinion writer at the Canon Media Awards last week.

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