Another family in need abandoned by the State
THE lack of hospital accommodation for the mother who smothered her mildly autistic daughter with a pillow is all of a piece with the other elements in this heartbreaking family tragedy. Just as the packed-to-capacity Central Mental Hospital cannot facilitate this woman so that a psychiatric evaluation can be carried out on her as ordered by the court, nor could our health service offer enough support to stop her sinking into the abyss and snuffing out the life of her small daughter.
Granted, there will always be cases where even the most timely intervention and expert help prove powerless to save tortured souls from themselves.
We can’t expect psychiatric or counselling services to perform miracles but we should expect, at the very least, that parents, on being informed that their child has special needs, are given the assistance they require to come to terms with the devastating news rather than is usually the case – let them sink or swim.
The case of this 43-year-old mother of two deserved particular attention as she had a history of depression and was the full-time carer of two small children, one with behavioural problems.
That she suffered from mental frailties in college and was now highly stressed again, sending despairing text messages to family and friends, desperate cries for help in effect, should have guaranteed her a state-funded homehelp or similar support until the worst was over.
BUT it’s unrealistic to expect a health service that fails in its fundamental role of providing a proper system of therapies to children with disabilities or disorders to look out for their parents’ mental health as well. The reality is that far from caring for parents, the entire system for special needs in this country relies on them: on their finances to take up the slack when the public system falls apart; on their determination to campaign for better resources; to fight tooth and nail for the therapies to help their children fulfil their potential and for respite care to make parents’ lives some way tolerable.
But only parents who are hopeful for the future are able for that arduous slog. Not everyone has the resources to pick themselves up after a well-meaning child psychologist has placed a metaphorical dagger in their heart about their precious child’s future.
Not everyone has the mental or financial resources David and Samantha Cameron had to cope with their desperately sick child, or Keith Duffy’s determination to raise awareness of autism on behalf of his daughter Mia, or Minister Finian McGrath’s or Fergus Finlay’s positivity about Down Syndrome.
Some parents are crushed by thoughts of what the future holds when they are gone or about approaching a health service that is creaking at the seams. The woman whose trial in the central criminal court has just ended in her being found not guilty of murder for reasons of insanity was plagued by such bleak thoughts.
SHE could not sleep, she was angry, she was so super well-informed about autism that it was not long, as the court heard, before she became ‘obsessed’ and ‘overwhelmed’ with her infant daughter’s diagnosis. She catastrophised the situation, convincing herself that the child had a more severe form of autism, when in truth she was on the milder end of the spectrum, suited to a range of therapies that could help her become independent.
In court, a psychiatrist said the woman suffered from a ‘recurrent depressive disorder’ which is a mental disorder and it had an element of psychosis at the time.
That’s her diagnosis but what is it that’s wrong with a health system that puts special-needs children on endless waiting lists and then abandons their parents?