Danyelle Haigh fights for son’s mental health after ADHD diagnosis

A mum is fighting for geographically isolated children to have equal access to mental health support after she struggled to receive help for her nine-year-old son.

Danyelle Haigh is fighting for better and more available access to mental health services in the Northern Territory after her son’s diagnosis of ADHD.

The Central Australian mum said son Heath was diagnosed with ADHD last year after she “pushed” his school teachers and doctors to take the link between his education and mental health seriously.

Ms Haigh wants equal access to federally-funded health clinics.

“It’s really sad to see your child go, ‘I don’t want to be alive anymore Mum, why am I dumb?’” she said.

“It breaks my heart.”

Danyelle Haigh hopes to be part of the solution for improving mental health services in remote Australia for people such as Heath, her son.

But Heath’s home on a station 190km north of Alice Springs has made it difficult for him to access ongoing mental health support despite the diagnosis.

“I’ve been put on a waiting list for everything – occupational therapists, psychologists, counsellors,” Ms Haigh said.

The mother-of-two claimed she was given disturbing advice at the Alice Springs hospital - which NT Health denied - but wanted greater support and access to mental health services in regional and country areas.

“You don’t want to be part of that statistic – you want to be part of the solution,” she said.

Danyelle Haigh said nine-year-old son Heath was a ‘beautiful child’ and had ‘such a big heart’.

Ms Haigh said she had flown her son interstate for appointments but was coming up against financial barriers.

She said the Royal Flying Doctor Service was her “guardian angels” while she fought for her son’s mental health.

“They have a mental health team, that mental health team has then come out to our station and they’ve sat down with me, my son, trying to … build that relationship,” she said.

“They’ve got counsellors, psychologists, a whole team that are willing to help him for no cost to us, but put him to the front because they’ve seen how serious it was.”

Theo and Heath Haigh live on a remote station 190km north of Alice Springs.

Ms Haigh told of her family’s crisis to fellow branch members of the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association of Australia at a Darwin conference and pleaded for help.

With the help of ICPA Alice Springs branch member Katy Hayes, Ms Haigh introduced a motion for the organisation to advocate for Ms Haigh and parents in similar positions before federal Health Minister Mark Butler and “other relevant ministers”.

“We should be able to access these services as well as anybody in the (urban) area,” Ms Haigh said.

Danyelle Haigh has pleaded with the Isolated Children's Parents' Association of Australia to advocate for remote kids to receive equal access to mental health support. Picture: Sierra Haigh

ICPA federal president Alana Moller said it was up to her and a council of 14 branch representatives to escalate calls for help such as Ms Haigh’s.

“Our aim is to ensure or try to achieve equitable educational outcomes for rural and remote children,” she said.

“The biggest issue is when children need that extra support to learn and that’s where health comes in – if you have a child with some specified educational difficult or learning difficulty, of course they need to access a lot of health services and support services and specialists to be able to perform in the school room or to be able to be educated.

“While they don’t have access to that extra support, their education isn’t going to be as good.”

An NT Health spokeswoman said young people living in remote Central Australia could access child psychiatrists via the Remote Mental Health Team.

She said anyone with an urgent mental health referral would receive care as priority from mental health specialists in the Alice Springs Hospital Emergency Department.

“Referrals, including those directly from young people themselves or their families or carers, are seen within two to four weeks’ maximum,” the spokeswoman said.

“Depending on a client’s individual needs, they will receive ongoing acute care in the paediatric ward or the Mental Health Unit at ASH, or client-focused support from primary mental health services.”

The spokeswoman said there was “no waitlist for access to the Alice Springs Child and Youth Mental Health Team”.

“There are a range of reasons a person of any age may be referred for mental health care, and it is important to note these reasons are not limited to a suicide attempt or self-harm,” she said.”

Originally published as Danyelle Haigh fights for son’s mental health after ADHD diagnosis