Letter of the week: Sharon Freer, Kerikeri
Young people such as Cassandra Fausett (NZ Herald, October 5) have been bombarded with information, local and global, uplifting and devastating from all of the media sources for the whole of their lives. Older adults experienced relative ignorance for the first part of their
lives and didn't feel the need to protect themselves from the information available but I know many people now who don't listen to the news – it is too distressing and provokes a feeling of helplessness.
In my professional experience, mental health care providers in NZ don't offer a guide or a map for this journey, but it has been developed elsewhere and is continually developing, thank goodness.
In its simplest form, the path is all around us – it is nature.
Gardening has been used as a therapeutic activity for those experiencing mental health challenges with great success and horses provide successful therapy for children who are non-verbal.
In New Zealand, a huge sum of money was dedicated to mental health but throwing more money at a system that doesn't provide positive outcomes will not create radical improvements. A change in the paradigm of mental health care provision is needed.
Plea for help
It did something indescribable to my heart when I opened today's edition (Weekend Herald, October 1). I didn't know Cassandra, but one of my granddaughters did.
I think they originally met in Starship on the ward where, at the very end, the anorexics are placed, sometimes with a guard to stop the absconders. The nurses are genuinely very caring, I cannot fault them. However, my granddaughter managed to walk off the ward and into the night on one long-stay admission. She is still anorexic, with all the complexities your article speaks of. Our struggle to get help echoes Cassandra's.
Our girl, although very unwell, is still with us. How, I don't know, but somehow she is. She now comes under adult services and cannot be admitted against her will unless court-ordered. We know she loved Cassandra and she was devastated when she died. My heart goes out to her parents and any other families going through this. Please help us get the help our precious children really need.
Gaylene Kennedy, Titirangi.
Show leadership
Reading about Cassandra's story (Weekend Herald, October 1), made me cry. How could it not? Her parents, Steve and Caroline, made heroic efforts to save her, and live through hell knowing they could not. To watch the light go out of the eyes of the most beloved face in the world to you, with the sickening knowledge that your child is too afraid to live and too afraid to die is soul-destroying enough. When they choose the latter because life just hurts too much, it's every parent's worst nightmare and worst defeat.
The hopelessly under-resourced and unco-ordinated mental health system couldn't save Cassandra and many more tragic children like her, and this crisis has been 20 years in the making.
The blame should be apportioned squarely on successive governments who knew our woeful statistics on youth suicide and who said nothing and did nothing. No excuses, no grandstanding. Just accept responsibility.
Instead of wasting time in Parliament arguing about which party would be the bigger culprit in fuelling greater inflation and who's truly Maori and who isn't, work collaboratively to find solutions to this mental health emergency. These children aren't a disposable generation and it's immoral to treat them as if they were.
Mary Hearn, Glendowie.
Wrong place
An accident and emergency department is not the place for someone who needs a quiet, nurturing environment as soon as possible.
As a recent Ministry of Health briefing to the Prime Minister said, police and emergency hospital staff are not ideal first responders.
As Dr Kate Allan of the Australian College for Emergency Medicine said, the emergency department isn't the right environment for somebody who is in acute mental stress.
In another world, at another time, the wise, calm, non-partisan members of the family, would be discreetly called. Sane and respectful discussion would take place.
Maybe the teen would go and stay for a bit with an elderly family group. Spend time in a peaceful, spacious environment among people who can listen.
These alarming statistics are not the government's responsibility. These are society's and families' responsibilities.
It's time we turned our attention away from kicking the "broken" health system and focus inwards, to ourselves.
The mayhem associated with emergency health services cannot provide what distressed, confused teens need, and that is to give them a good reason to want to live.
Only family can provide the level of support required to enter into the fragile mental realm of one of your own.
Jeanette O'Shea, Ōrewa.
Best efforts
After twice reading the (Weekend Herald, October 1) article on the teenage girl with mental health issues, I came to the conclusion that every agency involved from the hospital, Starship, psychiatrists, Youthline, crisis team, police, emergency services, counsellors, and all involved over a lengthy period went over and above in their efforts to help solve this sad situation.
It would be quite enlightening to hear the other side of the picture from those who have to deal with extremely difficult situations like this on a regular basis before judging the mental health system in New Zealand.
Linda Lang, Henderson.
