The comments come after revelations that a man accused of stabbing Laisa Maraia Waka to death on Saturday outside her Christchurch home was in a specialist mental health facility at Hillmorton Hospital.
Canterbury District Health Board said the man, who is currently under name suppression, was on leave when the incident happened and they had launched a full investigation.
The director of the Mental Health Foundation, Shaun Robinson, said increasing demand is making it increasingly difficult for service providers “to achieve the results they want.”
“There are services that are hugely overloaded.”
A report by the Mental Health and Wellness Commission released in March revealed no improvements to specialized services, despite a $1.9 billion funding increase announced by the government in 2019.
Robinson said there was a lack of urgency to address issues.
“The money was never enough,” he said.
“One of the recommendations of the study was that there was an ongoing strategy to invest in mental health and we just didn’t see that.
“We haven’t seen a clear practical plan to turn this around and we haven’t seen the investment it takes to get our mental health response to the size of people who need support.”
Robinson said it continued a continuing trend of past and present governments failing to grasp the magnitude of the problem.
Health Secretary Andrew Little said he informed Health Director-General Ashley Bloomfield of staff shortages for forensic mental health services, including Hillmorton, late last year.
Little said he wrote to the director of mental health and substance abuse treatment on Wednesday asking for assurances that an investigation would be conducted.
“We need to know what the conditions were that made him out on the street,” he said.
The minister expects to receive more details next week.
Funding for a new 80-bed acute inpatient psychiatric ward in Hillmorton was revealed when the government announced its final budget last month.
-By Adam Burns