North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has called on the Welsh Government to consider extending the distance people can travel during lockdown following pleas from constituents whose mental health is being affected due to the isolation they are experiencing.
Raising the issue with the First Minister in this afternoon’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood quoted “desperate” constituents who are struggling mentally because they live in rural areas and are unable to get out.
Calling on Mark Drakeford to make a statement on the capacity available to provide mental health support services across Wales, he said:
“Last week, the Mental Health Foundation called for a new cross Welsh Government strategy on preventing mental health problems, including widened access to ‘social prescribing’ such as arts projects, peer-to-peer projects and access to nature, and action to address rural mental health.
“How, therefore, do you respond to several retired constituents who emailed me last week:
“ ‘We are now starting to suffer health issues because of the lockdown. Mentally we can’t take much more’.
“‘The lanes where we live are narrow but unrestricted, dangerous and traffic moves very fast. They are definitely not safe to walk on’.
“ ‘We did, until now, understand the reasons for not allowing bubbles at the moment but frankly feel very desperate’.
“ ‘People like us see no one, talk to no one and are beginning to have health issues due to this isolation’”.
“ ‘Please appeal to the Welsh Government, putting forward the concerns of people such as ourselves since there are a great deal of them in rural wales.
“ ‘All we ask for is for an extended travel rule to different local beaches or open spaces and our bubbles so that we can talk, cry and support.’ ”
In his response, the First Minister provided hope that there will soon be more opportunities for people to meet outdoors.
He said: “ I indicated at the end of the last three-week review that I hoped that the current three-week review would be the last one in which we had to ask people to sustain a stay-at-home approach to dealing with the pandemic. Given that numbers are continuing to fall and that vaccination continues to be rolled out successfully in Wales, I remain hopeful that, at the end of this three-week cycle, it will be possible to offer people, in the circumstances that Mark Isherwood has described, greater ability to get the exercise that they are looking for, and potentially to find more opportunities for people to meet safely outdoors. All of this, however, will be done primarily within the lens of the continuing public health challenges that we face from this virus.”