KEY POINTS:
There is a "huge chance" that therapy for sufferers of mild to moderate depression will be free nationwide within two years, the Ministry of Health revealed yesterday.
Ministry director of mental health David Chaplow said free therapy services had been trialled in a pilot programme over 61 of the country's 82 primary health organisations (PHOs).
The trial allows people presenting to their doctors with mild to moderate depression the chance to access up to six sessions of free counselling, as an alternative to anti-depressant drugs.
But Dr Chaplow said that before the pilot programme could be rolled out nationwide, it needed to be evaluated.
"And that is something we have been working on. It's a priority for us, and it is part of our service. It's what we have signed up to do."
Dr Chaplow said the "talking therapies" had always been available and publicly funded for "more complex cases" of mental illness.
The news comes after this week's Hull University study which found anti-depressants worked little better than a placebo for many people.
New Zealand's drug-buying agency Pharmac spent nearly $28 million last year on the drugs.
The study suggested therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy and interpersonal psychotherapy be used as a first treatment option for sufferers of mild to moderate depression.
It is currently almost impossible to get patients publicly funded therapy in New Zealand, clinical psychologist and senior lecturer at Canterbury University, Dr Janet Carter, said yesterday.
If a patient with mild depression went to a psychologist but said the associated fee was a financial barrier, there were very few options open to them, she said.
Trainee psychologists occasionally offered free or cheap treatment as part of their education, and research studies could sometimes providefree treatment.
"But in the public system, generally, I wouldn't know where to send them," Dr Carter said.
That situation forced many patients to turn to publicly funded anti-depressant drugs.
"For many people they will make an anti-depressant choice, because it is a lot more affordable. And absolutely we should be funding [the talking therapies]," Dr Carter said.
Consultant psychiatrist and Otago University senior lecturer Dr Sunny Collings said health practitioners calling for funding to be balanced between drugs and therapy were "a lone voice among the pharmaceutical companies".
But he cautioned against rushing into such a scheme, as a blanket "talking therapy" funding provision would be too expensive and would fail to target individual patients effectively.
