MENTAL health services for homeless people with psychiatric illnesses in the Eastern Health Board area are to be expanded, according to the EHB. The creation of a special psychiatric in patient facility is being considered.
The EHB refused to comment on a case raised by Father Gerry Raftery of the Franciscan Priory at Merchant's Quay, Dublin, who said it had taken weeks to get an in patient psychiatric admission for a homeless man.
The EHB spokeswoman said four outreach workers are to be recruited to support homeless people. An out patient psychiatric service and other health care services will be provided in two clinics in central Dublin, dealing solely with the homeless.
The EHB is also considering ways of creating "a more stable daily environment" for homeless people and of developing responsible attitudes towards the homeless in the community. The EHB, Dublin Corporation and the Departments of Health and the Environment have agreed a strategy on services to homeless people, the spokeswoman said.
Father Raftery, who works with homeless people at the Franciscan centre, said that little official help was available to groups such as his when they sought in patient services for homeless people with psychiatric illnesses. He said it had taken weeks to get an in patient assessment for a homeless man who spends part of each day in the church on Merchant's Quay and at the food centre and who sleeps at the Grangegorman shelter.
The man was a paranoid schizophrenic and went through periods of great instability from not taking medication or from drinking, he said.
The Eastern Health Board had promised last year that "key workers" would be appointed to monitor the situation of homeless, mentally ill people but this had not happened and "there is nobody there to pick up the pieces".
One one occasion last year, he said, the man had only succeeded in getting into a psychiatric hospital when he was arrested and sent there by the Garda.
The EHB spokeswoman said the man is an out patient of St James's Hospital and that it would not be appropriate for the board to comment.