Community care working, says Mental Health Foundation

The Mental Health Foundation is rejecting calls to lock away people
with mental illness, following two attacks involving mental health
patients this week.

One patient was shot and wounded by police on Monday in West Auckland,
after allegedly stabbing a man to death and injuring two others.

It has emerged that a man arrested over an axe attack on an elderly
man near Arthur's Pass last night is also a mental health patient.

Foundation chief executive Judi Clements said such tragic incidents
highlight the need to examine the situation, to see if anything could
have been done better.

Ms Clements said New Zealand research in 2000 found that the
proportion of homicides by people with serious mental illness had
fallen since 1970, while the proportion committed by the general
population had increased.

This had come at a time when there had been a transition from
institutional mental health care to community care.

"Research has found that drug and alcohol problems are associated with
greater risk of violent offending than mental illness, and a
combination of the two can be problematic," she said.

"This highlights the need for good quality, accessible services in
these areas."

She said some media coverage of crimes committed by mental health
patients could cause public fear and antagonism towards those who may
use mental health services, and a grasp for instant solutions.

There had been major improvements in mental health services and
treatment in New Zealand, she said, including good quality community
based treatments, which have better outcomes for individuals and whole
communities.

Charlie Norcross, father of Robert Norcross who was wounded in the
attack at his fishing supplies shop in Henderson, yesterday called for
mental health patients to be kept in hospitals.

"The Government in their wisdom have just decided they'd save some
money and close them down and let them drift around in society," he
said.

"None of us are safe. You could go down the road shopping and anything
could happen."

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