CAUTIOUS WELCOME FOR NEW HSE PSYCHOLOGISTS
A cautious welcome has been given to HSE’s appointment of three new child psychologists to treat children and teenagers with mental health issues in Sligo.
While local campaign group ‘Our Voices Their Future’ have welcomed the three appointments, questions still remain as to how long their contracts are for and if they have been hired specifically for the border region.
“We’re absolutely delighted - if they keep the posts,” mother -of-three Yvonne Rainey told The Sligo Champion.
“Yes, they have been appointed but they won’t be seeing patients until midlate February,” she pointed out.
She claimed she was told by a HSE staff member last week that the three new psychologists would have to spend time going through the referral list to see which children they need to see first.
Yvonne is concerned that the psychologists may not be contracted to the North West region specifically - if they have a general HSE contract they may be offered a job elsewhere which is what happened before.
The campaigners are also concerned about the length of the contracts.
“Are they three month locum contracts? If so, that’s of no addition to us.
“Yes, it’s fantastic they’re taking on staff but there’s no follow up appointments.
“These are all vulnerable children with mental health issues. It takes them time to build up trust in psychologists.
“Is there going to be continuity? This is a massive problem in this area,” she said.
The ‘Our Voices Their Future’ campaign is meeting Minister Jim Daly this Wednesday (17 th January) to discuss the situation regarding child and teenage mental health services in this area.
They will be joined by HSE Disability Manager for the border region John Hayes.
Yvonne Rainey knows the difficulties facing children with mental health issues only too well. Her 9-year-old son Ryan was re-referred to CAMHS three months ago: “And I still haven’t heard anything back.”
“There are other children with parents who have literacy issues. What chance do they have?” she said.
Sligo/Leitrim Deputy Martin Kenny welcomed the news of the new psychologists but called for extra staff to handle the backlog of children waiting to be seen in the region.
“The Minister for Health has announced an additional 114 CAMHS posts, however I understand that none of these have been appointed to this region.
“I will be contacting the Minister for Health as the huge backlog in this region will require additional staffing above and beyond the filling of these three posts,” he said.
Deputy Kenny also paid tribute to the ‘Our Voice Their Future’ group for campaigning for these vital services.”
The ‘Our Voice Their Future’ group have been backed by The Sligo Champion in their campaign for better services for children in the region for the past year. In a statement to The Sligo Cham- pion last Friday, a spokesperson for the HSE said that all three vacant Clinical Psychologist posts in CAMHS will be filled from 22nd January 2018.
“In Sligo Leitrim the success in filling a number of posts in recent months e.g. Clinical Nurse Specialist, together with a number of local service initiatives has resulted in their total waiting list reducing from 215 in January 2017 to 36 at the end of December 2017 which represents an 83.2% reduction over the period.
“At the end of December 2017 there was 36 children/adolescents on the CAMHS waiting list in Sligo Leitrim. Sligo Leitrim CAMHS now has no child waiting over three months.
They expect “continual improvement” in waiting lists over the coming months as the impact of the above recruitment and local initiatives takes place.