South Island news wrap: Canterbury mental health services in dire state | Herald NOW
Canterbury’s mental health services have been slammed by a new report after two people were murdered by mental health patients. The region’s mental health services report they were report that they were struggling under the weight of the earthquakes, the Christ Church terror attack, CO 19, and a 35% prison population increase over the past decade. Cla Sherwood’s News Talk ZB South Island news director joins me this morning. CLA, good morning. Good morning, Ryan. Good to see you. Uh, not so good to see this report. No. Well, this is the S99 report that was launched actually back in 2022. I was in the newsroom at the time when we had the story come through that a woman by the name of La Sawaka Chunido had been walking home from work. She’d caught a bus home to Sburn and was walking home when she was uh tragically murdered by a man who we later found to be a mental health patient who had um been incarcerated previously for other violent crimes. Uh the investigation into Hill Morton Hospital or to our inpatient services was launched then after multiple staff came forward with concerns saying look this was bound to happen. Um there was underst staffing issues and various other concerns staff feeling unsafe at work etc. It really was a case of deja vu then late last year when 83year-old Francis Fa Phelps was murdered in her home uh at Mount Pleasant. Now, what the public were not able to know um immediately that we were aware of as a news team was that that arrest of the man who later admitted to that murder happened on the grounds of Hill Morton Hospital. So, we immediately had that sense of deja vu. Of course, this all happening whilst the review was underway. Very much a sense of dja vu as well for those investigating Hill Morton Hospital, certainly for the mental health foundation and of course for staff who are there. This report is extensive. It outlines serious failings um on multiple different levels at the Canterbury Inpatient Mental Health Services. The important thing is there are 18 recommendations that come out of that report. Um and there will be support from Health New Zealand for those recommendations to be implemented. There’s a commitment to that all of those failings and all of those recommendations have been accepted and that they will begin implementing all of the proposed changes. There is some concern though from the mental health foundation and we’ve spoken to one worker at Hill Morton Hospital who says look while they they’ve claimed yesterday in this uh you know media standup that lots of the changes are already in motion or many things have changed there is some concern from those who are working there who say look it still very much feels underresourced there’s still not enough beds certainly not enough staff and those staff who are going to work are not feeling safe in their workplace so there’s some significant change to come uh Health New Zealand has reached out to the families of those two murder victims to um you know offer their apology and um to offer some support. Uh we will certainly see over the next little while what those changes look like and and hopefully we never see this happen again.
Canterbury’s mental health services have been slammed by a new report after two people were murdered by mental health patients.
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