An additional $6.5 million of new funding in the coming year will go towards more beds and specialists to run residential treatment programmes for people with eating disorders.
Health Minister Tony Ryall and Associate Minister Jonathan Coleman tonight made a pre-budget announcement that $26 million of Mental Health Blueprint money would be invested over four years for the treatment of eating disorders.
The $6.5 million in 2009/10 would be on top of the existing $10.5m funding.
"The investment will mean up to eight community residential beds for Auckland, four new dedicated beds at Starship hospital, and expansion to the Central Region Eating Disorder Service and the Southern Region's Community Eating Disorder Service," Mr Ryall said.
"Once the new services are fully staffed and operational, more families will be able to get New Zealand based residential services which they have previously turned to Australia for." The new services are expected to begin from mid-next year but it would take longer to be fully operational.
"We know that specialist eating disorder treatments need a highly skilled workforce. Some of this funding will be used for training and increasing the specialist workforce in this area," Mr Ryall said.
