SAVE Segar House - 50 years of mental health support proposed to CLOSE

You may have heard recently that the only long-term publicly funded mental health service in Auckland has been 'proposed' to close by Health NZ. (Articles: RNZ The Post)

This is Segar's 50th year anniversary of providing a VERY needed service amongst mentally ill adults, as well as mentally ill teenagers who have aged out of youth services like Marinoto- such as myself. 

Segar provides support for those in critical mental health positions with priority on groups to help us connect to others like us, as well as individual therapy. 

Segar is known for taking in outpatients who deal with issues such as personality disorders (more focused on Borderline Personality Disorder with appropriate groups), as well as Complex PTSD, and Neurodiversity. The staff at Segar care so deeply for every single person in their service, every single staff member is so valuable that NZ Health is trying to reposition them into other mental health services, so they're very aware of the staff being effective and well suited for service- just not for us.

Taking away a system built for those who specifically struggle with complex mental health and suicidal ideation is an incredible misuse of power, taking away the one consistent service these people have in their lives is going to be the fastest way to bring those patients back into the spiral all the staff have worked so hard to bring us out of. I don't know in what world they think taking support from mentally ill people is going to have any kind of positive impact, on the patients or the workers. They work so well because they are a team, splitting them up would dissolve this multi-support system they've worked so hard to achieve. 

One of the reasons they're fixing to close Segar is a 'lack of patients', but the system in place to provide this service alone is enough to bring that upon any business. 

My therapist believed I needed more support than she alone could offer me, and she mentioned how she used to work at Segar and thought it would be a good fit. 
The process for this then involves my private therapist writing a note for my doctor, I then have to book in to see my doctor and have him forward that note into his system, so he could send an application for me to a public group at North Shore Hospital first. After a long wait I get a response that the hospital group is full, my therapist then forwarded my profile to Segar and I was accepted immediately- others in the service had been trying to get into Segar with failed admissions into the service because the people who went through their patient report before handing them to Segar claimed they "weren't bad enough". I had never heard of this service until late last year, and it was only because I was lucky enough to meet my private therapist. The 'lack of patients' is due to the systemic dismissal of those who are mentally ill until they are forced to PROVE they deserve help.
Segar has helped HUNDREDS of people over their 50 years, and it's the only public service us at Segar have found support with, all of my classmates agree that this service is better than ANY other help we've been trying to get. 
 
The cherry on the cake is that none of the Segar staff are allowed to talk about what's happening, nor advocate for the service and their jobs. All the staff are able to do to try and save the service is send in appeals, and cross their fingers.
 
I've contacted Chlöe Swarbrick in hopes of pushing officials to keep Segar open for the many members of the public, who deserve the right to mental health support without paying upwards of $150 for a private therapist. 

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