Rauaroha Segar House. Photo: Google Maps Street View
- Health NZ extends consultation on proposal to shut mental health facility.
- Past patient says the programme at Segar House changed his life.
- Opposition spokeswoman hopes Health NZ is consulting widely.
- Health NZ says it can't yet say when final decision will be made.
Health officials have extended the consultation period about the future of an Auckland mental health facility facing closure.
Health NZ has proposed shutting Rauaroha Segar House, a publicly funded intensive programme for people with long-standing or chronic mental health problems, even though staff and patients say nothing similar is available elsewhere in the North Island.
Now staff are rallying to save it, and more voices are joining those calls, including a former patient.
A man - who wants to remain anonymous - said he was struggling before he entered the programme.
"When I first engaged with Segar House I suffered quite severe anxiety, ongoing long-term depression.
"I simply wasn't really functioning. I wasn't employed. I struggled to do basic tasks like even going to the supermarket to get food."
His life had now changed thanks to Segar House, he said.
"In the three years since leaving Segar House I'm now self-employed. I run my own business. I'm now no longer reliant on the government for any sort of benefit. I'm completely paying my own way. I'm engaging in society.
"It's difficult even to believe how much progress I've made."
About 10 people go through the programme at any one time, but Health NZ said that wasn't enough.
However, about six years ago criteria to enter changed, so it's only available to people who haven't worked out in other treatments.
Segar House staff have made a counter proposal to Health NZ to keep the service and extend it to more people.
The former patient said closing it would mean people, including trauma victims and survivors of abuse, wouldn't have access to something that worked.
He said Health NZ's proposal had left him feeling despondent about its effects on those in the programme.
"These are people really trying to rebuild their lives because this therapy isn't available elsewhere.
"They're just going to melt away back into the background. It's just so sad. They could be really contributing to society.
"They're just being abandoned."
Closure would be akin to not providing care to a particular group of cancer sufferers, he said.
The programme at Segar House mixed individual therapy with group work.
"You're actually effectively building on a lot of skills to deal with real-world situations and a lot of the learning takes place when you see other people getting results or other people dealing with things.
"You can see similarities with your own problems in other people and that really gives you an opportunity to grow."
Health NZ said the proposal to close Segar House wouldn't reduce frontline staff, and redeploying them would mean their expertise was available to more people.
It didn't answer questions about who it was consulting, and said it couldn't yet say when a final decision would be made.
"In all other districts tangata whaiora [patients] with similar presentations are treated with individual therapy or group-based programmes, which is what we are proposing," Health NZ group director of operations for Auckland Michael Shepherd said.
"The consultation process is still under way and no decision as to the proposal has been made.
"While the consultation process is occurring, tangata whaiora will continue to receive the same service and support that they are currently receiving."
Labour's mental health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. Photo: VNP/Louis Collins
Labour's mental health spokesperson Ingrid Leary would like health officials to go with the staff proposal and then later make a decision on the programme's viability when that's been assessed.
"I've been advised that the [consultation] date has been pushed out, but nobody knows until when.
"It's to give the union the opportunity to speak with the employer about the alternative business plan, which would see Segar House extend the number of clients and be able to continue with its service."
Health NZ declining to say who it had consulted with didn't bode well, Leary said.
"I would have hoped that the extension for the decision was so Health NZ could consult not just with themselves, but actually go to the wider community and clinicians to do a proper consultation.
"The fact that they won't reveal who they've consulted with indicates to me that they haven't consulted anyone else but themselves."
The Public Service Association and Association of Salaried Medical Specialists have launched an online petition to save Segar House, which has about 480 signatures so far.
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