This year’s theme — Five Ways, Five Days — is sharing a tool a day this week to boost mental health.
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists fellow and psychogeriatrician Daniel Allen said the psychiatric workforce shortage was apparent in rural New Zealand.
It was a "perfect storm of circumstances" and the health services were no longer able to provide the same level of care.
He shared stories from his time in Southland, where elderly patients were transferred away from family because of the lack of resources in the area.
Dr Allen said psychiatric services in New Zealand had been at crisis point for some time.
"We are now entering the early stages of a system collapse."
A bigger problem was also expected to come with an influx of older people which would cause a "significant resource burden".
Dr Allen said it was increasingly difficult for people to access psychiatric services and there was not enough support for those who needed it.
The hardest part for him was making patients and family choose between sending loved ones away and using medications as a result of the lack of resources.
Psychogeriatrician Yoram Barak said a psychiatric consultancy clinic for older people used to run in Oamaru, but this was no longer available.
A nurse practitioner was in the process of winding it down, which would mean no help would be available for older people.
He said the lack of resources would mean only the most acute and unwell patients would be able to access the help they needed.
He described the current system as an "ongoing crisis of resources".
Despite the lack of resources, mental health awareness was celebrated in Oamaru with a morning tea at the Oamaru Public Library yesterday for World Alzheimer’s Day.
