It would appear that “denial” is a default stock-in-trade within mental health services, if the plethora of feedback I have received via this website and in person is anything to go by.

When I hear of vulnerable mental health clients in crisis being told to “distract themselves” by Crisis teams, it simply reaffirms my belief that their “training” has given them precisely no tools in either managing or treating clients. They don’t give clients any answers to their distress, because they have no answers to their clients distress.

It would be much more transparent if a team member said “well, actually, I haven’t got a blue clue as to how to help you -but let me find someone who can”.

Trouble for the Crisis teams is, they would most likely have to then make a referral outside of their own service, which would then embarrass the serrvice management – and if there was one thing I observed when working for a DHB – almost no-one dares to embarrass the management.

The issue for me is a simple one – many of those at the front line of mental health services are not competant nor sufficiently trained to manage and treat at-risk clients – and it is their ideology and their egos which blinds them to this fact.

Once this fact is acknowledged by the services, then we might start to make some progress with reducing the death rate of mental health clients.

Since having had further treatment for my mental health from common sense proffessionals I have found out that if you are in dire straights with your suicidal ideation then you can to contact the police and they will come and pick you up and take you to a psychiatric unit. So please dont hesitate to call if you or anyone you know is in a suicidal state and are being ignored by the crisis service.

Thank you for providing the Psychwatch NZ website with your update.

I would like to attend the inquest, however you would most likely need to secure the permission of the Coroner for me to do so. Meredith Connell have been instrumental in blocking me from attending such hearings, most recently on behalf of the ADHB.

If you can secure the appropriate permission for me to attend the Hearing, I will attempt to shift my Practice appointments in order to do so – is the Hearing in Auckland?

I invite people to attend or follow the inquest if they want to know the truth about how the system killed my child.

Well now that would mean they would have to admit they where in the WRONG!

But maybe it was the CCDHB complaints facilitator that denied me access to Dr Patton, I recall she laid down ground rules strictly limiting the issues I could discuss with him.

My only fault was an inability to communicate in a way that was most convenient to them, they refused to let me communicate in the way that I knew worked best for me. It was my right, under the HDC Act.

I am still fighting for justice. In the last few months, I have learnt that I have Asperger’s Syndrome, meaning a good IQ, good memory, but unable to communicate well.

Recently a locum psychiatrist for the Crisis Team saw me twice, reviewed my files, read my faxes to him, teling him of how badly his team interacted with me, he put that down to my Asperiger’s Syndrom. only with this psychiatrist present, did I have good communication with his team.

(A copy of this letter has been forwarded to Mr Steve Taylor, for a related matter to this comment)

In other words, the so called Professional Crisis Team had an inability to communicate with me in a useful manner, I recall a full 50% of the time I talking to the Crisis Team, they kept interputing me, one of the pair was not even listening.

Which brings me back to the ground rules set for a meeting with Mr Patton, which I was unable to agree with so we did not meet.

It seems the so called mental health professionals can freely override service users rights under the H&D Act, to effective communication whenever they like, with no punishment by the HDC.

No wonder so many consumers kill themselves in frustration at not being heard.

I wonder if Dr Patton might be thoughtful enough to put in a good word for me with Nigel Fairly, the CCDHB Directer of Mental Health Services, so Mr Fairly, my one to one psychologist prior to 1993, might help me resolve the on-going mushrooming issue caused by that psychiatrist Dr Alex xxxxxxx ignoring a part of the H&D Act in 2002

Mind you, in NZ the police investigate the police, social workers investigate social workers, midwives investigate midwives – when history teaches us that a self-referential guide is the most dangerous guide of all.