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You cannot look at the current state of eating disorder services in NZ and confidently say there is enough being done to address the shortfall in these services. Hundreds of people are being denied help because services are funded to help only those with the most ‘severe’ EDs.
Services are so underfunded and overloaded that people who aren’t extremely physically unwell are being turned away or are being put on months long waitlists, effectively leaving people in the dark to navigate a life threatening illness by themselves, without medical help.
I was underweight and physically unwell when I was put on a waitlist because the public eating disorder services told me I wasn’t severe enough to be seen immediately despite the fact I was struggling and deteriorating fast.
The burden of care is being put on GPs who do not have the resources and training to adequately treat eating disorders. GPs are trained to treat physical symptoms, leaving the mental side of eating disorders completely untreated and leaving people vulnerable to relapse, etc.
Everyone I’ve talked to who is treating eating disorders or who is going through the system themselves are saying services are reaching crisis level and it’s only getting worse. Parents, family members and partners are watching their loved ones deteriorate right before their eyes
while being told their eating disorder isn’t ‘bad’ enough to necessitate medical help. People who aren’t physically unwell or whose eating disorder hasn’t resulted in extreme physical repercussions such as weight loss are having their struggle invalidated because they don’t meet
the strict physical requirement for help. People are ending up in hospital or are developing much more severe eating disorders had they been given the help they needed when they first asked for it and before their disorder got out of hand. Some people are even dying before they
are given treatment which I think is pretty god damn shameful. Eating disorders are mental illnesses but so many people aren’t getting the help they desperately need just to SURVIVE because our public system is not fit for purpose and is not funded to keep up with demand.
So many people are reaching crisis point because we have a system that determines the severity of an eating disorder on physical symptoms alone because how else are you supposed to prioritise care when you’ve got hundreds of people asking for help and the capacity to treat only a
fraction of those people. There is no way the shortfall in specialist eating disorder services is being addressed when you’ve got people dying, specialists telling people to come back when their eating disorder is ‘worse’ and a system which still uses outdated stereotypes
to determine who has an eating disorder and who doesn’t.
