It is no secret that New Zealand has a mental health problem. After years of indifference, one of the things National government decided to implement to address this was an $8 million scheme to send mental health workers on crisis call outs with the police. This scheme would have meant that trained and expert mental health workers would have accompanied first responders and provided acute support when it was needed the most. Police also lobbied for this scheme –

The police proposal, released under the Official Information Act last year, said police were “increasingly acting as first responders to people who should more appropriately receive a mental health response”.

”As a result, mentally impaired people are not always dealt with by police in a manner that is conducive to their mental and physical well-being, increasing their distress and placing them at greater risk of harm while in police custody.”

But now Health Minister David Clark has axed the scheme even before it took off the ground in favour of an overall review and approach to mental health. This will come about through the on-going mental health inquiry initiated by the ninister and one that is due to report back in October.

Predictably though, National is not happy about cancelling of the scheme –

“Police spend around 280 hours a day responding to mental health calls. They do a good job, but are not mental health professionals so having a mental health nurse deployed to incidents with police would make a real difference.

”It beggars belief that this government would axe the potentially game-changing pilot which had universal support from those on the front-line”.

Further, Police Association president Chris Cahill is also disappointed –

”It’s all good to have inquiries and to have think-tanks, but people need help now. They’re crying out for it.”

This scheme was the ultimate ambulance at bottom of the cliff solution to the mental health problem. But it is an ambulance that should not have been turned back. Even if this scheme was a band-aid, piecemeal solution, and even as the government waits for the outcome of its own inquiry, this scheme should have been trialled. Anything that the government’s inquiry comes up with, even if it is better than this scheme, will need time to be implemented. But it is obvious that practical help is needed now, not just in a year’s time.

This scheme should have been trialled, even if only for a short period of time while the other schemes in the inquiry are implemented.