The most vulnerable are likely to suffer with the introduction of ‘social bonds’ for the private sector.
In the United States, about $2 billion each year is shaved off community mental healthcare funding and funnelled straight into the pockets of the private sector, one way or another.
That's the model New Zealand wants to emulate, as revealed this week with a tiny taster in the shape of "social bonds" for mental health services. It's the shape of things to come, as private companies continue to lobby for unfettered access to public monies earmarked for health, education, prisons, and so forth.
In the US, acute mental health care is a costly business, but it's harder to access when private providers have to chase revenue streams. Consequently, the number of beds available for psychiatric treatment reduces by thousands annually. And at the same time prisons and homeless populations swell. Those with the most acute mental health issues simply cycle through emergency rooms, homeless shelters, jails and police cells, sometimes ending their personal circle of hell in the morgue.
Nothing has stopped the privatisation freight train for mental health (or any health) services in the US, not even dire "performance indicators". In North Carolina, according to the state's Child Mental Health Network, highly trained mental health care workers have left the field as private providers took control, decimating the professional public-sector workforce. Service quality suffered as private providers "cherry-picked" the least difficult patients and focused on the most profitable services, including that which could be performed by low-paid, unlicensed workers.