The service provided by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, which arranges private treatment for patients waiting long periods on hospital waiting lists, should also be made available to patients with mental health problems, it was claimed yesterday.
The Irish College of Psychiatrists, in a presentation to the joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, said there were many areas of psychiatry where there were waiting lists. Children and adolescents could be waiting a year or more.
"I can't see why your varicose veins are more important than your depression," Dr Bren- dan Cassidy, a Dublin-based psychiatrist told the committee, in a reference to the fact that the National Treatment Purchase Fund will arrange treatment for those with varicose veins but not the mentally ill.
"This demonstrates inequity and exclusion of mental health," he added.
The chairperson of the Irish College of Psychiatrists, Dr Kate Ganter, said mental health services in the Republic were in a deplorable state. There were just 20 beds for children and adolescents when over 200 were required.
Dr Ganter said funding for mental health services dropped from 11 per cent of the total health budget in 1997 to 6.6 per cent in 2003.
Yet, she said, mental ill health affects one in four people in their lifetime and one in 10 of those who develop a severe mental illness die by suicide.
Dr Ganter pointed out that urban areas have on average half the funding per capita of rural areas but twice the rate of severe mental illness.
Furthermore, she said almost half the acute psychiatric beds in the Eastern Regional Health Authority area were blocked by inappropriately placed patients.
"In some cases these beds are provided in facilities that are poorly maintained, badly lit, cold, damp and out-dated," Dr Ganter said.
" I can assure you that if you were to visit any of these facilities you would be shocked," she added.
Dr Stephen Browne said that despite the gaps in service there was no question of patients now being given tablets rather than "being talked to".
However, he said patients' treatment was being "stymied" by the fact that 20 per cent of psychiatrists have no access to a psychologist and 13 per cent have no access to a social worker.
The group also claimed that mental health had been forgotten about by the Hanly report.