CAMHS audit must restore faith in State care

IN THE country’s fraught and chequered record in the area of child and adolescent development, the spotlight of public attention is normally on waiting lists and the so-called ‘postcode lottery’ which means that depending on their address, some children must only wait a matter of weeks, while others face such monumental delays that their parents throw in the towel and shell out hundreds of euro on a private assessment.

But the scandal in the South Kerry unit of CAMHS highlights a hidden waiting list, of vacancies for staff including nurses, social workers, psychologists and consultant psychiatrists that can take an eternity to fill and are often at the root of the more well-aired problem of patient waiting lists.

The review of the operation found that at least 46 children had suffered ‘significant harm’ by a junior doctor who went about his work largely unsupervised, even when the alarm was raised in 2018 about his eagerness to medicate children.

Under his so-called care, children gained considerable weight, were so sedated they were like zombies going to school, had high blood pressure and produced breast milk.

A crisis of recruitment and staff retention at consultant psychiatric level has been blamed for the disaster and the fear now is that the dodgy treatment that passed for medical attention in south Kerry is being replicated in other places where fully trained staff are in short supply.

The national audit will identify shortcomings in children’s treatment and hopefully shore up public confidence in CAMHS.

While child welfare is the top priority, we can’t lose sight of the danger of a further slide into the arms of a private sector that can never replicate the holistic service CAMHS offers (when it’s properly functioning) to vulnerable children.

The last thing we need is yet another two-tiered branch of health care sprouting in the service.