Mental Health Poll: Govt not doing enough

Mental Health Poll: Govt not doing enough

Source: PSA

EMBARGOED UNTIL 5:00am, Wednesday 24 May 2017

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Only one in ten New Zealanders think the Government is doing enough around mental health, says a poll released today.

UMR Research carried out the poll for the Public Service Association, the union representing the majority of mental health nurses, allied and support staff.

Just 13% of respondents think the Government is doing enough to ensure every New Zealander gets the mental health care they need when they need it. 60% feel the Government isn’t doing enough. 22% neither agree nor disagree, and 5% are unsure.

PSA national secretary Erin Polaczuk says the public poll echoes the views of people working in and using mental health services.

"The first step in resolving any mental health issue is acknowledging the problem," says Ms Polaczuk.

"It is totally negligent for the Government to continue denying there’s a crisis. It’s clear that the public, workers and services users agree that not enough is being done."

Ms Polaczuk says the crisis is getting worse because the Government has cut mental health funding in real terms.

"National has only increased mental health funding by 28% since it came to power - despite a 60% increase in service users," she says.

"Health needs an extra $1.1b in this Thursday’s Budget just to maintain an unacceptable status quo. Anything less will see further cuts to services and more tragedies."

Ms Polaczuk says the number of suicide attempts handled by police has increased by a third in five years, and a quarter of all people who commit suicide have been in contact with mental health services.

The YesWeCare.nz survey in March found that 9 in 10 people working in health felt they were under-resourced.

The Peoples’ Mental Health Review in April found that 9 in 10 people using mental health services were dissatisfied with their experience.

For editors

The UMR/PSA poll asked:

"While there are always issues competing for budget funding and priority, using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 means strongly agree and 5 means strongly disagree, how much do you agree or disagree that the Government is doing enough to ensure every New Zealander is getting the mental health care they need when they need it?"

The UMR poll covers the period between 10 May to 20 May, surveying 750 people. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percent.

There is very little difference between the number of National, Labour and Green Party voters who agree the Government is meeting mental health needs.

The complete poll is available here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9rnmmksml997yrf/UMR-PSA-Mental-Health-Poll-2017-05-24.pdf?dl=0

ENDS

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