Waiariki: Whānau grapple with suicide – 'We all have the same broken heart'

In the Waiariki electorate, suicide remains one of the most urgent mental health challenges facing its communities, with the Rotorua Lakes District recording one of the highest suspected suicide rates in the country.

The latest provisional data from the Office of the Chief Coroner found the district had a suspected suicide rate of 19.1 per 100,000 people in the year to June, greater than Auckland, Northland and Waikato.

Nationally, the rate of suspected suicide death is highest among Māori men, particularly those aged 25 to 44.

The disparity has remained for more than 15 years.

Karen and Robert Pene lost their 19-year-old son Ihakara, the second eldest of their four children, in 2017.

They were “a very close family” his mother said. “Everything we did, we did together.”

Ihakara was a rising star in New Zealand’s BMX and mountain biking scene, and his family would try to be at every race, travelling the country in a bus to each event.

Karen still remembers their last conversation.

“That Friday night, he rang me and said, ‘how do I make steam pudding?’ Because he was helping a friend at a baby shower.”

But he never showed up to work on Monday, said Karen.

“Yeah, it just shattered our world.”

Over the years, she and Robert have reflected on that harrowing day - the knock at the door by a police officer who they say delivered the news with “no empathy at all” - and the funeral home that would not allow their whānau to stay at Ihakara’s side on the first night.

“They said, ‘oh, no, we're closing up, you can't come in, we've got to do it at seven o'clock in the morning’,” said Robert.

They slept outside on the steps instead, as close as they could get to their son, while cousins and friends brought kai and mattresses.

“I said, he won't let it rain on us. He won't let it rain.”

Showers were forecast in the area that night, but not a drop fell from the sky.

In July this year Robert and Karen were among dozens of whānau to attend the first suicide wānanga of its kind in Rotorua for bereaved families.

He Aturangi Kā Māmao Collective, a group of advocates and organisations across the region, organised the two-day retreat near Lake Ōkataina, about 30 km north-east of Rotorua.

Eugene Temara from Te Arawa Whānau Ora said the number of suspected suicide deaths, particularly among young Māori men in recent years, had been devastating.

“But it doesn't discriminate, it hits everyone. The beautiful thing about what's been said over the last day is that everyone has their own phases, and has their own path in this journey. It’s been empowering, inspiring, but taumaha (heavy) at times”.

Whānau who attended the wānanga were at different stages of their grief. Some had lost loved ones years ago, others just a few months ago.

Author and educator Heeni Morehu, a key driver behind the wānanga, said there was nothing else like it.

“I love the space that we've created for our whānau because I know how scary and how much courage and effort it takes to be present in these spaces, especially when you've just lost someone.”

The Rotorua mother has tragically lost two sons. Her eldest, 17-year-old Kahu, died in a car crash in 2009 before her younger son, Hepa, 16, took his own life in 2011.

“I think people have to be aware that it changes a person indefinitely. From that point on, you're never the same.”

Morehu realised early-on that there weren’t many places she could turn to for support, where people actually understood what she was going through.

“There are a lot of gaps in our system. When they're in spaces like this, it's only understanding, because we all have the same broken heart. We don't have to try and fit in.”

Some whānau shared experiences of people in their lives slowly fading away after the death of their loved ones, even crossing the street when they saw them coming.

Tauranga mother Angela Angell, who lost her 18-year-old son Te Rangikotia in 2024, said some people found it too difficult to talk about. She stopped hearing from a few.

“It felt like another loss.”

There was shame and stigma too.

Some marae in Tauranga refused to accommodate her son’s tangihanga.

“We had a really hard time finding marae that would accept my son. We were allowed to take him there until they found out the way he died,” she said.

When one marae eventually did agree to have him, it was clear his death was being treated differently.

“We were told he could lay out by the shoes. He couldn't come in any further and that was really quite heartbreaking.”

Since arriving at the wānanga with daughter Cyrin Rangitakatu, she said she felt seen and heard.

“Like, somebody gets me. Somebody knows what that feels like.”

Kirsty Maxwell has been working in mental health and suicide prevention for 24 years. She said the latest statistics didn’t capture the full scale of the problem.

“We are seeing a level of distress at far greater rates than what we've seen.”

She now leads the Poutiri Wellness Centre in Te Puke, a health and social service provider, that works right across the Waiariki electorate.

“In the last six weeks, we have supported four whānau who have lost whānau members to [suspected] whakamomori (suicide) in the Eastern Bay of Plenty alone.”

Among the deceased was a 12-year-old child she said.

“We are hard pressed to find a whānau who hasn’t been affected by suicide. We are finding levels of complexity, distress, depression and struggles at a far greater level of complexity than what we have seen in the past.”

Those complexities are often associated with poverty and hardship.

“There are lots of families that are really struggling, struggling to put food on the table, struggling to keep power, to feed their kids, and those things have other stresses that come with it and compound,” said Maxwell.

Another problem whānau are dealing with is online addictions, an issue Maxwell said was leaving people more disconnected and isolated than ever.

“We are seeing a level of distress at far greater rates than what we've seen.”

Sarah Barkley, a mental health and addiction nurse practitioner, said another key driver of mental distress, particularly for young people, were relationship breakdowns.

“Some of the young men who talk about suicide have often had a relationship end and they don't know how to survive without it, they can't see their way through, and there is a way through, there's always a way through.”

Despite being Pākehā and from “rural Taranaki”, Barkley has supported thousands of Māori patients in her 37 years working in health.

She now works for Korowai Aroha, a kaupapa Māori health provider in Rotorua.

“As a non-Māori person to work alongside these guys, and this is going to sound cheesy, but it's quite life changing for me. That's where my heart is. I don’t want to work for mainstream anymore.

“Time limits are such a problem in health care and certainly in primary health, you can't do much in 15 minutes, you can try and they work so hard. We have the benefit of being able to give people more time and to actually hear their story.”

Maxwell said kaupapa Māori providers could sometimes offer a level of care and cultural expertise that mainstream providers could not, but still struggled getting the recognition they deserved.

“The disinvestment in delivering health and social services in a way that actually reflects who we are as Māori means that sometimes accessing services feels very clinical, very cold and in the absence of something that feels safe and effective for Māori families.”

National Party's spokesperson and current Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey said: "Let me be clear, one suicide is far too many and there will never be an acceptable number. That is why the Government has had a clear focus on suicide prevention and ensuring people have faster access to support."

He said the latest data showed the suicide rate for Māori is 16.0 per 100,000 people, while the national rate was 17 - both lower rates in over a decade. However, according to Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora, the differences were not "statistically significant" when compared to the average rates over the last 17 years.

Doocey added it's known that Māori continue to experience inequitable outcomes, and pointed to the Suicide Prevention Action Plan.

"In Waiariki in particular, significant work is underway to improve access to support this includes new initiatives to create a better crisis response such as crisis recovery cafés and mental health co-response teams."

Labour Party mental health spokesperson Ingrid Leary told waateanews.com last week: "Those numbers are stubbornly staying around the same levels, there hasn’t been any change over successive governments with any statistical significance and it’s really concerning to see that Māori men in some groups in particular have three times the level of suicide than other groups."

She said there were two things that needed to be looked into: the cause of inequities, which will be social, resourcing and equity issues; and equitable, resourced and sustainable interventions for Māori.

“I think we need to be careful about being political about suicide, nobody wants to see these statistics," she said.

Tony Redstone attended the wānanga at Lake Okataina alone.

It’s been 13 years since his son George, just 16 at the time, took his own life. A “good boy” who sometimes struggled at school due to his dyslexia.

He said he had lost plenty of people in his life, but this was the “hardest way to lose someone”.

“There's all those unanswered questions, you know. And they can never be answered because he’s gone.”

Redstone admits he was “just a mess for two years” and while health professionals put him on “happy pills” to help, he said it never worked.

“It was actually quite hard to carry on being a parent after I lost, yeah. I wouldn't say he was my favourite, but he was my heart, you know. Because he was the youngest.”

He said the wānanga offered “a little bit more understanding” and he wanted to see more initiatives like it.

“There was a young woman yesterday, she had a baby, and her partner had gone. So, yeah, I just shared a few words with her.

“My sharing might help someone. I hope it helps.”

Tāne Takitu Ake, a six-week Māori mental health and wellbeing programme in Rotorua, is changing lives.

Its name, meaning to ‘stand firm together as men’, has supported hundreds since it began in the early 2000s. It uses a combination of wānanga, physical activity, peer support and cultural connection to support them. They also learn a Tāne Takitu Ake haka.

When 1News visited, about a dozen men were sitting around a table. One by one they were asked to answer a question from a randomly-selected conversation-promoting card.

Some of the questions included: If you could attain any item, what would it be and why? What has been a defining moment in your life? What excites you most about your life right now?

The answers were honest, and revealing.

Participant Haimona Seymour told the group that the thing that most excited him about life was “time”.

Time with whānau, friends, and his community. “Time is an expensive currency,” he told them. “You can spend it, but you’ll never get a refund.”

When asked about the purpose of the activity, Seymour did not hesitate.

“If you're not open, then how are people gonna know what’s going on?”

The programme had given him a fresh perspective on life, he said. After years of dealing with grief and a change in living circumstances after moving from Queenstown, it was a place he felt supported.

“I’ve learnt resilience. Now, I'm not fazed by the smallest things.”

Kirsty Maxwell said Māori-led initiatives like it were making a real difference.

“So, there are solutions, there absolutely are things that are happening incredibly in the community. We just don't have enough of it because it's often not recognised by our health system as a valid or evidence based modality that will support whānau.”

The wānanga at Lake Ōkataina has given whānau a little bit of hope.

Robert Pene said sharing his experiences had lifted a heaviness inside.

"The more I talk about it, the more it gets taken out into the atmosphere. If you haven't got somebody to lean on, find someone. Find someone to talk to."

Tessa Malton, who has lost “way too many whānau” to suicide and is a suicide survivor herself, said she had come away from the wānanga feeling less alone.

“Once people started opening up and letting out their pain, in the end, it was like we were all on the same waka.

"What gives me hope? That we're not alone.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, visit mentalhealth.org.nz for more information.

If it's an emergency call 111.

Here is a list of helplines for support:

- Youthline — 0800 376 633, free text 234, Whats App 09886 56 96 or web chat at youthline.co.nz

- Lifeline — 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or text 4357 (HELP).

- Samaritans — 0800 726 666

- 1737 - Need to Talk? — Call or text 1737 to talk or text with a trained counsellor

- Depression Helpline — 0800 111 757 or free text 4202 to talk with a trained counsellor

- Anxiety NZ — 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY)

- Healthline — 0800 611 116

- Suicide Crisis Helpline — 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)