Mental health disaster unfolding in Canterbury DHB

Something has gone terribly wrong with the Canterbury DHB’s management of New Zealand’s only high quality Eating Disorder Unit, Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.

He says the resignation of the clinical director, Geoff Buckett, is only the latest disaster.

Dr Buckett is going to Sydney to work for one of the best eating disorder clinics in the world. He has been highly critical of the ‘exclusion from decision making tables’ of the mental health service, and especially of plans to remove adolescents from specialty care.

Jim Anderton has learned that eleven other psychiatrists have also recently resigned, including the chief of psychiatry Dr Phil Brinded.

“Why is the Board and management of the Canterbury DHB overseeing this disaster, with apparent disregard for the serious consequences for the most vulnerable patients and families anyone can imagine?

“Either they know about it and have done nothing, or they don’t know, which is almost worse.

“With the 198 Youth Centre Service going down one day and the Eating Disorder Unit the next, one wonders what else is about to happen to an already fragile mental health system.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media