Eating Disorders: Ambulance at Bottom of Cliff

Northern Region Services For Eating Disorders: More Than An Ambulance At The Bottom Of The Cliff?

Auckland-based NGO’s have welcomed Health Minister Tony Ryall’s announcement that an eight-bed specialist residential service for eating disorders is to be created for Auckland. “There is a serious need for this and it is long overdue” says Maree Burns from the Eating Difficulties Education Network (EDEN). However only prioritizing an inpatient or residential services for funding and not increasing funding for early intervention, early identification and support in the community would undermine overall improvements to Auckland’s eating disorders services these organizations claim.

“With between 5 and 8% of the population suffering from eating disorders, the vast majority of whom will not be medically compromised enough to require hospitalization, we must direct funding and resources towards early interventions to ensure people are identified and receive information, support, treatment and referral as early as possible”, says Maree Burns, whose organization provides accessible information, support and counselling to individuals with eating difficulties (and their carers) as well as health promotion, training and a school-based prevention programme. Burns suggests that funding this kind of early intervention and early identification in the northern region alongside beds, would ensure “the best use of resources and funding to make certain as few people as possible will require the kind of specialized inpatient care that the proposed new unit will provide”.

Auckland community groups such as EDEN along with Auckland Women’s Centre and Women’s Health Action see the devastating effects that poor body image and eating difficulties have on young women everyday. “The treatment, but equally important, the prevention of eating disorders is a key health issue for New Zealand’s young women” said Christy Parker of Women’s Health Action, “reducing the incidence of eating disorders and the damage they cause sufferers and their families requires integrated eating disorders services whereby a range of community and local services sit alongside and are supported by clinical inpatient services”.

This was the vision for eating disorders services described in the long awaited Ministry of Health plan ‘Future Directions for Eating Disorders Services in New Zealand’ released in April last year. With the Health Minister’s recent announcement neglecting any mention of improvements or funding across the range of eating disorders services and focusing only on beds, community groups are now concerned that the vision of Future Directions will be unfulfilled. “While 8 inpatient and residential beds are welcome in Auckland this goes nowhere near addressing this problem for between 5 and 8% of the population who struggle” said Maree Burns.

ENDS

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