Interesting article

Hi,

Just found this article in the National Business Review "Ombudsman concerned about prison mental health services"

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/ombudsman-concerned-about-prison-mental-health-services-38515

I would be intrested in your comments.

I spent almost the first month in the "At risk Unit" due to my diagnosis and background of suicide and self harm.

I was unable to recieve Zopiclone or Lithiam (sp?) which had been prescribed by my GP due to prison policy.

I often did not recieve my medications and at stage went four days without any medication and I was under a lot of extra pressure as I was back and forth to court three times that week for various procedural matters.

I am pleased that they are looking into the issue but there are other aspects they are not covering, such as support for those on ebail and community based sentances (community work, community detention and home d).

An example of this is when I was released on ebail one of my conditions was I was to have a psyc assesment and ongoing councelling. I contacted the local mental health team who told me to talk to justice, who told me I should be talking to the community mental health etc and round and round it went. In the end I organised my own private counselling.

When I finally did get a psyc assesment done, they found I was at risk of further decompestion (sp??) but decided they would do no follow up.

A similar thing happened when I was finally sentanced. A lot of the progress that I have managed to make has been off my own bat.

All of this is on top of being let down by the mental health services in the first place when I tried to get help before I went off the deepend and was "not unwell enough".

Roswell

Seems to me (and with my experiences too) that to survive as a person with a mental illness in New Zealand ironically requires a hell of a lot of assertiveness and tenacity to get what you need.

I can only imagine the hell that someone would go through if they had a short half life medicine such as effexor denied to them for even two days.

Don't start me on lack of services for those not considered in desperate need, either. As far as the system is concerned, you are either suicidal/homicidal, or perfectly well and able to look after yourself. Nothing in between.