Lack of vision on mental health a damning indictment of parties
THE tragic deaths of Conor, Darragh and Karla McGinley shocked the nation and have once again highlighted the lack of mental health services in our country in the process. The story dominated the news cycle in what was a very busy week for hard news stories in particular.
As court proceedings into their deaths continue questions are being asked. Questions like how did this happen in the Ireland of 2020? Online everyone has an answer but the truth has yet to be poured over in any detail and until such time as more information is forthcoming I, for one, will not be going there.
Suffice to say mental health is an issue, maybe the issue of this General Election.
Waiting lists to see Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAHMS) staff are a joke in both Co Wicklow and Co Wexford.
It emerged last month that the taxpayer (you and I) have spent €225,000 on rent for a promised mental health facility, which is still not open, despite being announced more than two years ago.
I questioned Taoiseach Leo Varadkar about Arden House after he opened the New Ross Bypass on Wednesday and he declared that it will be staffed and opened within a few weeks, but where one gap in the country’s mental health services is filled, another inevitably emerges.
Successive governments have utterly failed people with mental health issues. The length of waiting lists for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services says it all.
A child in my hometown has to wait six years for a school education assessment. On the other, more serious end of the spectrum children who are going through mental health trauma are still being admitted to adult units.
According to the 2006 Vision for Change policy more than 2,400 additional staff are needed in mental health services if the level of care proposed in the system is to be provided. According to HSE figures provided to Fianna Fáil’s Mental Health spokesperson James Browne the HSE’s Employment Report reveals an increase of just 34 staff in mental health services between December last year and October 2019.
‘The figures show extraordinary regional variations in the levels of staff. CHO 7, (Kildare, West Wicklow, Dublin West, Dublin South West and Dublin South City) has less than half the staff required. The South East (CHO 6) has just over half but CHO 2 (Galway, Mayo, Roscommon) has almost 13 per cent more than what was recommended under A Vision for Change. This does not strike me as evidence of good workforce planning,’ he said.
Having been a reporter for 17 years I’ve reported on several tragedies involving multiple deaths and it is a damning indictment to still be reporting on a lack of mental health services.
As the next government – whatever shape it takes – comes to power let’s hope the message has sunk in that what we have is not good enough. One in three of us will suffer from mental health problems in our lives and a waiting list is not good enough when a moment of crisis arrives.
It’s hard to see the wood for the trees with all of the promises being thrown up during auction politics season – as flyers get stuffed through our letterboxes and faces, earnest and well manicured, peer at us from posters – but the truth remains that mental health in Ireland has been neglected and seen as secondary to health services which needs to stop.