Dublin South West TD, Sean Crowe, has described the Mental Health Commission\u2019s report on mental health services as damning. The report, which was published this week, describes the system as \u2018unsafe and substandard\u2019 and clearly in disarray.<\/p>\n
The Sinn F\u00e9in TD said the report details a whole litany of systemic failures and it criticises the wholly inadequate response from the Government on tackling issues which put vulnerable patients at risk.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Mental Health Commission\u2019s report is just the latest in a long line of expert analysis of the mental health services which have found them to be below what is sufficient to meet the needs of the vulnerable people who rely on them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Mental Health Commission releases a report every year and the findings in this year\u2019s edition while damning of governments failures, are nothing new to those who have been following their work, advocating for change, or trying to engage with the services.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet again last year we see the continuation of the intolerable admission of children and adolescents into adult mental health units due to the toxic mix of staff and bed shortages.<\/p>\n
\u201c82 young people were forced to spend at least one night in an adult ward while at their most vulnerable mentally. In some cases the children did not even have a bed free for the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe HSE statement plays this down comparing it to decade old figures but this is a marked increase on the previous year and down obvious inadequacies in the system.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cOutpatient CAMHS services are understaffed, waiting lists for assessments and psychological services are on an upward trend and early intervention is being neglected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week I visited the Linn Dara Child and Adolescents Service Mental Health Day programme in Cherry Orchard in Ballyfermot with colleagues from the Oireachtas Mental Health Committee<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided to visit after hearing of its sudden and impending closure due to staff shortages. This will leave only two day hospitals open, only 60 of the promised 100 in-patient beds operational, and less than 50% of the community teams operational.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should be aiming to avoid altogether the need for young people to be admitted to wards, never mind simply to provide them an age appropriate environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Commission reports that progress on needed reform has been slow or non-existent in many parts of country. This cannot be allowed to continue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government needs to get real and begin prioritising not just investment in mental health but in driving the reforms that will deliver a first class service for some of our most vulnerable citizens.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Sean Crowe, has described the Mental Health Commission\u2019s report on mental health services as damning. The report, which was published this week, describes the system as \u2018unsafe and substandard\u2019 and clearly in disarray. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD said the report details a whole litany of systemic failures and it criticises the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[389,66,380],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camhs","category-mental-health","category-mental-health-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3541,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions\/3541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}