Inside Out - Mental Health over 140 years

This episode of the long-running series made by and for Kiwis with disabilities focusses on the evolution of mental health care in Aotearoa, specifically in Christchurch. Pākehā settlers 'didn't plan' for mental illness in their fledgling society, and soon the jails were full. Presenter Kate Hirst takes a tour of Sunnyside Hospital, built in 1863, a physical and philosophical embodiment of changing approaches to treating mental illness. She speaks with academic Warwick Brunton and  ex-hospital staff and patients about New Zealand's move to community-based care, and visits a residential facility run by Stepping Stone Trust.

At the turn of the twentieth century ... 90 per cent of all patients in a psychiatric hospital were deemed to be incurable. So therefore you try to make the conditions as tolerable and as human as you could, within all those limitations of staffing and money and architecture.

– University of Otago Senior Fellow Warwick Brunton, during a tour of Sunnyside Hospital

Key Cast & Crew

Kate Hirst

Reporter, Research

Paul Enticott

Editor

Bryan Williams

Producer

Storm Johnson

Compile Editor

Paul Skelton

Sound

Gerard Smyth

Director, Camera Operator