Waikato DHB mental health review focus will be system-wide, not independent

The Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre at Waikato Hospital where the Ombudsman found patients were subjected to degrading and inhumane treatment. Photo / Derek Flynn

A review into mental health services in the Waikato begins next week but one critic says the review team is not independent.

However Waikato District Health Board said it was never intended to be an independent review because that had already been done.

The DHB announced a system-wide review in March after a damning report by the Ombudsman that found patients were being subjected to degrading, inhumane care.

It followed an investigation by the Herald that found a roll call of shame exposing 18 serious incidents including escapes, suicides and murders, spanning two decades involving Waikato DHB mental health patients.

In February four families of patients who died tragically during or after receiving mental health care from the DHB, wrote to then Health Minister David Clark urging an external inquiry.

In a letter to staff this week from mental health and addictions executive director Vicky Aitken, seen by the Herald, the review team of six was announced.

It would be led by retired psychiatrist Dr David Chaplow and overseen by former Health and Disability Commissioner Professor Ron Paterson, who chaired the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addictions Services in New Zealand in 2018.

"David will be joined by a team of advisers, across a whānau and lived experience perspective and with a wide range of knowledge in mental health and addictions systems and service design, Māori mental health service design and delivery expertise," Aitken wrote.

However Jane Stevens, the mother of Nicky Stevens - a patient at the Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre at Waikato Hospital when he took his life in 2015 - said members of the review team were not independent because they had ties to the DHB.

Jane Stevens is again calling for an independent and external review of Waikato DHB's mental health services. Instead there will be a system-wide review. Photo / Alan Gibson

Chaplow recently led a review into the death of patient Rhys Thomassen, who ran away from an escorted walking group in November last year and was found dead the next morning.

A second member was part of a Midland district health board clinical governance group that included Chaplow and Waikato DHB mental health and addictions clinical services director Rees Tapsell.

Another works for the DHB.

"We were actually calling for an independent, urgent investigation and the Ombudsman was calling for outside intervention to address the continuing and repetitive failures," Stevens said.

"It wasn't about a DHB-run review of services. This is a crisis situation."

The families wrote to Clark again in June after they had not received a reply to their February letter.

In response Clark said progression of the external review announced by Waikato DHB chief executive Dr Kevin Snee in March had been delayed because of Covid-19 and agreed to meet the concerned families when next in the Waikato.

Shortly after, Clark resigned as health minister.

Yesterday Stevens wrote to his successor, Chris Hipkins, saying the families' calls for urgent, independent action had gone unheeded by the Government.

She said the whānau were concerned the latest review would not be impartial.

"We have seen in the past even when the intention is to provide a frank and honest assessment this can easily be compromised unless it is completely separate and independent from those being reviewed and led by people without a personal interest, connection or conflict."

A Waikato DHB spokesman said it was a system-wide review intended to inform the DHB's investment, resourcing and service configuration for mental health and addiction services in the Waikato.

"It is not intended to be an independent review into the service as has been undertaken previously.

"We now anticipate a draft report in late 2020."

The union for senior doctors said mental health services in almost every region were at breaking point because of overcrowding, chronic staff shortages, and the rising number of acute cases driven by methamphetamine and now Covid-19.

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) executive director Sarah Dalton said the

union had heard of patients who have had to be sedated in emergency departments and forced to wait several hours before moving onto a ward.

She said there was a serious shortage of psychiatrists and ASMS research showed

very high levels of burnout.

"Mental health is at the pointy end of health underfunding and staff and patients are being put at risk."