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Mike King slams NZ's health 'bureaucracy' — returns NZOM medal ahead of Gumboot Friday

May 27, 2021

King says he is contacted on a daily basis from families who can’t get help for their suicidal children.

Mental Health advocate and educator Mike King is returning his New Zealand Order of Merit medal ahead of Gumboot Friday after sending an open letter to Jacinda Ardern.

It comes as the former New Zealander of the Year is stationed down at Auckland Domain ahead of his annual fundraising event tomorrow to raise money for free counselling for New Zealand youth.

King sent the letter to Ardern this afternoon, telling her he felt "honoured" to receive the medal at the time but now feels uncomfortable with New Zealand's unchanged mental health landscape.

"It no longer sits comfortably with me. Every day I look at myself in the mirror and ask, 'How can you wear this title when things haven’t changed and so many are still suffering?'

"The truth is I can’t. I know none of this is your fault Prime Minister and I know you truly care about our children but the system is broken and it seems to our most vulnerable Kiwis and their families that no one is trying to fix it," King says in the letter. 

"On that basis I stand with those families and with great sadness I will be returning my NZOM Medal to Dame Patsy Reddy before she leaves office.

"I know this is the last thing you needed to hear but I can no longer stand idly by hoping things will change and knowing they won’t.

"To paraphrase Martin Luther King, 'For incompetence to prevail all it needs is for good people to do nothing.'"

Ardern responded telling 1 NEWS she commended King's advocacy work and that he was deserving of the medal. 

“I don’t think Mike has been in touch with me recently but I would like to assure him, and others, that we know the work to improve mental health care in New Zealand is not complete yet. We have made good steps but know there is much more to do.

“While I totally respect Mike’s decision, his honour was about the contribution he’s made to improving people’s lives – and that stands,” Arden said. 

King's letter comes as tomorrow marks the third anniversary of Gumboot Friday.

King says he will be stationed at Auckland's Domain from midday today and "will not leave until midnight Friday".

He plans to walk 100,000 metres in gumboots around the domain. His goal is to raise $5 million to provide 37,000 free counselling sessions "for our kids".

King says he has sent "heaps" of Official Information Act (OIA) requests through to the Ministry of Health to find out where the $1.9 billion worth of funding allocated to mental health in the last Budget went.

King was named New Zealander of the Year in 2019 for his advocacy on mental health.

He says he rarely speaks to the Prime Minister now over his concerns about the health system, adding that Ardern "doesn't return my phone calls".

"We have a system that focuses on crisis. It’s the only system in the world that you have to be suicidal to get the hope that you need.

"I’ve been told in private by different ministers that there’s plenty [of money] there but we don’t know where to spend it," King says.

"Every day I am contacted by families begging for help after being told their children don’t qualify for counselling because they are not suicidal enough.

"Every week I am on planes flying around the country meeting with distressed families whose children have been discharged from hospital after a suicide attempt with little or no support, often without even seeing a psychiatrist," King says.

He says the I Am Hope charity has tried to work with the ministry for the past three years but has gotten no where.

"I’ve got DHBs who now refer to us because we are quicker and we are cheaper," he says.

He says he wasn't taking aim at Ardern or "any politician".

"I am saying the system is broken, the procurement process is broken.

"We are constantly being told that we are a team of five million. They decide where the money goes.

"I just want to stand with the families whose children are suicidal and say I hear you, I will try everything in my power to make life better for your children," King says. 

"I’m returning the medal because I’m disillusioned with the bureaucrats who run the country."

King says 137 people under the age of 25 take their life every year. With 600 people dying of suicide each year.

Tomorrow night at 6pm, King says a mass haka will be performed, led by former All Blacks captain Buck Shelford, to represent the 654 people who died by suicide in the past year.

The Ministry of Health says it has been in touch with King over the past two years and says he hasn't engaged in its procurement process.

"The Ministry of Health acknowledges the passion, commitment and role that Mr King plays in terms of mental health and wellbeing in New Zealand," says Toni Gutschlag, Acting Deputy Director-General Mental Health and Addiction.

"We have been in communications with Mr King regarding our work programme over the past two years.

"The Ministry of Health is happy to receive an application from Gumboot Friday as part of any Government Procurement process. The Ministry of Health previously ran a procurement process for youth primary mental health and addiction services and did not receive a proposal from Gumboot Friday," Gutschlag says.

"There is also an open invitation for discussion."

Chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, Shaun Robinson told 1 NEWS he shares King’s concerns. 

“I can completely understand why he would do that and we share a deep disappointment at this stage, to the Government’s response to the mental health crisis in this country. 

“There are a million people in New Zealand today who are struggling with their mental health.

"If we had done nothing about Covid and had a massive epidemic, that’s the situation we have with mental health. This Government and previous Governments have gotten away with that after decades and decades of doing nothing."

He says now as more people step forward to seek help, the true extent of the problem is emerging.

The recommendations from the latest Government inquiry into mental health have not been followed up, Robinson says.

The He Ara Oranga report was released in November 2018 but not responded to until June 2019, the day before the Wellbeing Budget was released.

The report issued a number of recommendations which Robinson says the Government made a “big song and dance about”.

He says the Government has failed to act comprehensively.

"The Government accepted the recommendations but has failed to follow through on major parts of that.

“We don’t have a plan to put the 38 of those 40 recommendations to work - after two years” he says.

“I think what has happened is that the Government threw $1.9 billion at it and then promptly started focusing on other things and they took their eye off the ball.

"Everything the Government has done is positive but it hasn't been followed through." 

Robinson says the Ministry got $1.1 billion of the funding which was allocated in the 2019 budget to be spent over four years. He says although the funding was allocated, he can’t be sure of what has been spent.

"We have a mental health epidemic of Covid-19 proportions," he says. 


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