Community care working, says Mental Health Foundation

The Mental Health Foundation is rejecting calls to lock away people with mental illness, following two attacks involving mental health patients this week.

One patient was shot and wounded by police on Monday in West Auckland, after allegedly stabbing a man to death and injuring two others.

It has emerged that a man arrested over an axe attack on an elderly man near Arthur's Pass last night is also a mental health patient.

Foundation chief executive Judi Clements said such tragic incidents highlight the need to examine the situation, to see if anything could have been done better.

Ms Clements said New Zealand research in 2000 found that the proportion of homicides by people with serious mental illness had fallen since 1970, while the proportion committed by the general population had increased.

This had come at a time when there had been a transition from institutional mental health care to community care.

"Research has found that drug and alcohol problems are associated with greater risk of violent offending than mental illness, and a combination of the two can be problematic," she said.

"This highlights the need for good quality, accessible services in these areas."

She said some media coverage of crimes committed by mental health patients could cause public fear and antagonism towards those who may use mental health services, and a grasp for instant solutions.

There had been major improvements in mental health services and treatment in New Zealand, she said, including good quality community based treatments, which have better outcomes for individuals and whole communities.

Charlie Norcross, father of Robert Norcross who was wounded in the attack at his fishing supplies shop in Henderson, yesterday called for mental health patients to be kept in hospitals.

"The Government in their wisdom have just decided they'd save some money and close them down and let them drift around in society," he said.

"None of us are safe. You could go down the road shopping and anything could happen."