National Mental Illness Summit

May I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand - English, Maori, Cook Island Maori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language. Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni - and as it is morning [sign].

May I specifically greet you: keynote speakers Dr Margaret Leggatt from Australia and Dr Xavier Amador from the United States; distinguished guests otherwise, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for the invitation to my wife Susan and I to be here for this event and for me to have the privilege of opening the National Mental Illness Summit 2008.

I have travelled here this morning from the Government House near the Basin Reserve at Number 1 Rugby Street Newtown! If one had been there, 100 years ago the premises on the site were known as the Mount View Lunatic Asylum.

Government House came to be built there from 1908 to 1910 to replace the asylum which was shifted to Kenepuru near Porirua.  The nomenclature of hospitals is one of many changes the mental health system has changed - and for the better in the century that has followed. No longer are there the euphemistic names such as Avondale and Sunnyside and Cherry Farm.  Indeed hospitalisation has become something resorted to only in the event of acute illness.  By and large those who are unwell are able to be treated in the community and in their homes.

Another immediate change is how medical practitioners approach their role which is to engage in a positive relationship with the patient in order to manage the condition with the involvement of the patient.  Linked with this is the involvement of family and whanau members. 

I always think that the importance of a Conference is the agenda because it is that document that describes the principal issue in the minds of those in charge.  It is noteworthy that the summit focuses on the role of families in facing the challenges of mental illness.

Mental illness is certainly a family matter - and also a community matter. Everyone has a role to play in creating a community that is supportive of those with  mental illness, and which also recognises the challenges presented to their families.

A survey undertaken in 2005 found that New Zealand registered creditably in terms of community acceptance of those with mental illnesses compared with many other countries.

A considerable amount is due to the Ministry of Health's campaign called - Like Minds, Like Mine.  When people see other New Zealanders speaking honestly and openly about their own challenges with mental illness, and particularly prominent people, this helps them to re-evaluate their own attitudes.

And it makes us realise that when we talk about people with mental illnesses, we are talking about ourselves, our friends and our family members - people we know and love.

A survey undertaken by the Ministry of Health in 2006 found that about 47 percent of New Zealanders will experience a mental illness and/or an addiction at some time in their lives, with one in five people affected within one year.  If you look at those statistics in terms of families, this means a large percentage of the New Zealand population is affected.

In New Zealand it is important that we have the kind of positive approaches I have mentioned because it enables us to look back on how, in a former era, such was not the case and the patients were marginalised.

The best example to recall is that of writer Janet Frame - who was saved by winning a literary award for her first book of short stories, from a lobotomy operation she was scheduled to undergo in 1951 after a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

She went on to record in chilling detail what it felt like to be dealt with as someone with a mental illness in the 1950s - in both her novels and autobiographical writings.  She wrote about how she was often told that what was being done to her was 'for her own good'. And she commented, "'For your own good' is a persuasive argument that will eventually make man agree to his own destruction."  Luckily, she had sown the seeds of her salvation by writing those brilliant, early short stories.

As we know, Janet Frame went on write a great deal more, winning literary awards and world-wide acclaim, and to become identified as a New Zealand 'cultural icon'.

Janet Frame had help from her family, but some vital support came from someone outside her family - from the writer, Frank Sargeson.

Sargeson gave her a place to write- in an old army hut in his back yard in Takapuna - and acceptance of who she was, and encouragement to pursue her craft in her own unique way.

That wonderful mixture of practical help and emotional support allowed Janet Frame to find her feet as a writer.  The combination of clinical expertise and family care are most important - but also vital are the common sense, fellow feeling and friendship of other people.  

This was made clear to me in the role I had before being appointed Governor-General in 2006 when, for some 16 months, I chaired the work of the Forum for Former In-Patients of Psychiatric Hospitals.  Despite misgivings and anxiety some 500 people came forward and related their accounts as patients or family members or staff.

Further insight to these issues came this last July when I had the pleasure of launching the Mental Health Foundation's latest research report, Fighting Shadows: Self-Stigma And Mental Illness (Whawhai atu te Whakama Hihira).

Building on the Like Minds, Like Mine campaign, Fighting Shadows explores the impact of self-stigma on those living with mental illnesses.  What was so refreshing about the research was that it both outlined important data and findings, but also ensured the voices of those with mental illnesses were heard.

The quotes from those living with a mental illness showed that behind the findings and the numbers are real people, whose lives have been crushed by their illness and have also been kept there by the weight of the negative attitudes they carry on their shoulders.

Unlike a century ago when there was a Mount View Lunatic Asylum, we may now as a community be more tolerant of people with mental illnesses. There still remains however, a challenge to deal with underlying values.  That young children, for example, can make fun of and express prejudiced views of people with mental illnesses, shows how deep seated those attitudes may be in our society.

In the same way that I have urged all New Zealanders to be more than just tolerant of those who are culturally or religiously different from us, I make the same plea to better understand those living with mental illnesses. 

Getting to know those who have a mental illness will not be fraught if we are prepared to get to know people as they are, not as we might judge them to be.  These means we need to see them as individuals.

The challenge for us all is to see people for who they are, not as we conceive them to be.  We need to recognise their strengths, to support them as they grapple with their weaknesses, to respect their efforts - and to help others do the same.

It requires working together.  As the Maori proverb or whakatauki has it:-

Kaua e rangiruatia te ha o te hoe e kore to tatou waka e u ki uta. 

This translates as: Do not lift the paddle out of unison or our canoe will never reach the shore.

On that note, I would like to officially declare the National Mental Illness Summit 2008 open - and to wish you good health and fortitude in your endeavours - and in our country's first language, Maori:

No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tena koutou katoa.