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The mother of a teenager with anorexia and bulimia says the children will die unless the government invests more money and resources in treating eating disorders.
Photo: 123rf
Demand for services has more than doubled this year, according to the New Zealand Eating Disorders Association and says the situation has reached a critical point.
It says that children as young as eight years old wait weeks or even months to be seen for specialized services, despite having life-threatening illnesses.
Bridget said Control her teenage daughter became seriously ill with anorexia and bulimia in February. They told her the waiting list was six months for a publicly funded community treatment program, after initially taking her daughter to a GP.
“After helping her physically and so on, he said, ‘just go home and eat,’ which for a child who is terrified of food, unfortunately is not very helpful,” said Bridget.
“I’m sure his heart was in the right place, but it just wasn’t of much help. And unfortunately he sent the reference to the wrong place.
“I don’t think it’s her fault, I think GPs need more information and education on how to manage these eating disorders and where to refer them, depending on their district.
“It’s quite a complicated system from what we found out. They first refer you to mental health services before they send you to a specific center for eating disorders.
“We saw a private psychologist and once the psychologist sent him to the right place, we got a phone call saying there was a waiting list of five to six months, which broke my heart.
“I then tried to access private care, and they also told us that it would be an eight-week wait, that seeing my daughter, we simply did not have eight weeks. Day by day you could see the deterioration.
“We were desperate for help, but there came a point where she had to be admitted to the hospital because she was in very bad shape physically. It is a psychiatric disorder that has serious physical ramifications.
“We ended up in the hospital and that actually got us moving up the list to get into the care of an eating disorder specialist. But it also means that someone probably pushed someone on the ladder when she went upstairs. Someone else was not getting the care. you deserve “.
Bridget’s last name has been withheld for privacy reasons.
She said Control Because her daughter is 17, she didn’t qualify for Starship Hospital, which Bridget believed would have more specialized treatment for eating disorders.
The New Zealand Eating Disorders Association said children as young as eight waited weeks to be seen for life-threatening eating disorders such as anorexia.
He called on the government to establish a specialist-led panel to investigate ways to provide better services and treatment for eating disorders, which have the highest death rate of all psychiatric illnesses.
Association President Nicki Wilson said Control the number of people needing help had skyrocketed across all age groups.
“We are really at a critical point, we are really concerned,” he said.
EDANZ is a voluntary organization with a support line for people to get help or information about eating disorders. Wilson said that compared to 2019, they are receiving four times more phone calls.
“Really busy, and we know DHB services are seeing at least twice the demand on their services this year. And private connections, of which there are three or four in New Zealand alone, are reporting three or four times more than what they have experienced [at] the same time last year.
“And people have to wait a long time for treatment when they receive a diagnosis.
“Eating disorders are treatable diseases. And when someone is quickly diagnosed and referred to evidence-based treatment right away, and right away, I think that, like any life-threatening illness we’re talking about, very, very quickly, in a week or two, then the suffering is less, the severity of the disease is less, the time that people are not well is reduced and they get better quickly.
“Right now, people are waiting six to eight weeks. We have heard of people waiting up to nine months to be seen in specialized services funded by DHB to receive treatment.”
“People are getting seriously ill and, in fact, end up in the hospital in a life-threatening situation, requiring far more intervention and treatment than would have been necessary otherwise.
“And it’s unnecessary. The services are just overwhelmed, the people who work within them are passionate and hard-working, and they just don’t have the capacity to keep up with the demand.”
Wilson said EDANZ has been working with services and meeting with doctors from across the country to discuss possible short-term solutions to close the gap.
“In the long term, we are looking for a government-led review of services.”
Lives are in danger, he said, and his organization has heard of people as young as eight and 65 awaiting treatment.
“They end up going to the emergency department and that’s when they go into the hospital for life-saving treatment.”
“Eating disorders affect people of all ages, all genders, all socioeconomic groups, nationalities. Eating disorders have always affected a representative sample of the community.
“So there is nothing new in the fact that eight-year-olds get seriously ill with an eating disorder. And I think right now we are witnessing more people getting sick, so we see more of all the age groups, including young people.
“As services spread out, they are getting worse than they would be if services were equipped to cope.”
Wilson said he doesn’t really know exactly why the numbers have risen so dramatically as there has been no review of services for over 10 years, but they have seen the increase since the Covid-19 shutdowns.
“We know that mental health conditions in general have worsened [during Covid-19] and we think it’s part of that. There is increased anxiety and uncertainty, there has been a lack of structure and even connection during the block. Anxiety and depression have increased in the general population.
“So it is the worsening of conditions in some people who are already sick, and new cases are being detected and diagnosed or occurring.”
Evidence-based treatment for eating disorders is based on the family, he said. Control.
“You are feeding yourself within your community, within your own home, and just normalizing life as soon as possible, so outpatient treatment is what we need.
“We ask the government to review the current services and understand that the current capacity, the resources that are in the DHB funded eating disorder services, are not adequate.
“They are stretched, the demand is not being met and we would like that to be led by the government. We believe that the Ministry of Health should review what is currently being provided.”
“We made a presentation to mental health research a couple of years ago and we were disappointed that we didn’t see any answers to the problems we were highlighting and some of the solutions we were suggesting at the time.
“They have not left, they have gotten worse and we are asking that attention be paid to the situation.”
He said that there was a need to increase the workforce and that GPs needed to receive more education.
“They need resources and support, they are crying out for help, they are telling EDANZ that they are diagnosing a patient and then holding and monitoring him weekly, and watching him deteriorate for weeks while they wait for him to receive treatment.”
