“Whilst still very unwell and delusional, he was allowed out for a 10-minute vape break.
“Forty-five minutes later, my son is at our house, very volatile, putting us both in a compromised situation, and at that point the hospital did not even know he had left.”
Four police officers responded.
They tried to convince her son he was unwell and needed to go back to hospital, but said they had no power to take him unless they arrested him for an offence.
“Why does my son need to be a criminal before he has a recognised mental health illness?
“It seems so unfair and frustrating to be told that he’s got borderline schizophrenic delusions, and we need to deal with that on the outside.”
Police could also be intimidating to an unwell person, unlike the mental health response teams who used to assist in such situations.
It was almost 10 years since such assistance had been offered to the family, she said.
Rather than funding extra police, money should be put into bridging this gap in mental health admission, she said.
She urged the Government to focus on this before the system created more criminals.
Her son should never have been released from the Act so soon, but the assessment was a “30-minute snapshot” of his behaviour that did not take a holistic view, she said.
Although he could present well at times, at home he had been unrecognisable, and while staying in the ward had made worrying social media posts.
However, the hospital was “extremely dismissive” of these concerns, and communication had also been poor, she said.
Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand (HNZ) Southern group director of operations Hamish Brown said pressure from staff shortages was being felt on the frontlines of the health system.
Ward 9b was a 15-bed unit and sometimes went over capacity in periods of high demand, although this was not the case at present.
The ward had struggled with staffing, but 3.4 FTE registered nurses were due to start soon, he said.
“There are no other significant issues with resources on the ward.”
HNZ sympathised with patients facing healthcare challenges and welcomed feedback, although it was unable to comment on specific patients.
Asked if the health system was putting the responsibility of responding to people with mental health issues on to police, he said people in mental distress could be assessed and treated in the community through Dunedin’s co-response team pilot programme.
Teams of mental health clinicians, police and paramedics visited people, who often did not need to go to hospital, he said.
The programme had been operating in Dunedin since June 2020 and had significant benefits.
However, a Hato Hone St John spokesperson confirmed it had not been part of the co-response programme since June.
It had joined the programme in 2021 for a one-year period that had been extended until earlier this year.
It did not comment further on why it had left the programme.
St John was involved in the Government’s five-year plan to roll out a nationwide co-response scheme, announced last month.
A police spokesperson said at present police led the response to people presenting in mental distress via 111, except where co-response models were already in place.
The nationwide rollout would transition away from a police-led response and provide people going through a mental health crisis with the help they needed.
Connolly-George questioned the effectiveness of Dunedin’s co-response programme.
She had never been made aware of it despite her interactions with police and the mental health system, and despite the urgent need of her son, she said.
