It was a "disgrace" that a disturbed 11-year-old boy suffering from a rare form of cancer has had no therapeutic services while being detained at the Ballydowd special care unit for some six months, a High Court judge said yesterday. The court heard the boy was doing well medically.
Mr Justice Kelly ordered the South Western Area Health Board to bring evidence before him tomorrow to explain how many other children in the unit at Ballydowd, Lucan, Co Dublin, were not receiving therapeutic services. If that was the situation, it called into question how many orders should be made in the future sending children to Ballydowd, the judge said.
He wanted to know why he was "misled" into thinking children he was sending to Ballydowd were receiving therapy when they were not.
For years he had to use "sticking plaster" solutions by sending children to totally inappropriate places but was then told Ballydowd was the answer to those difficulties, the judge said. There were eight children there and he had learned yesterday two were not getting the therapy they needed. He wanted to know if there were others.
In summer 1998, in response to an acute crisis in the provision of secure places for disturbed children, the judge granted an injunction directing the building of the Ballyowd unit. Only one of the unit's three eight-bed units is operational because, according to the SWAHB, it is unable to recruit sufficient qualified persons to staff the units.
Yesterday the judge heard the 11-year-old boy has not received therapy since being placed in Ballydowd on foot of a court order.
The deputy director of Ballydowd, Mr Ronan Fitzgerald, said the child was doing relatively well there but could be volatile and had physical outbursts.
Ms Colette McLoughlin, a social work team leader with the SWAHB, said there had been difficulties regarding who provided therapeutic services for Ballydowd. There were rules regarding health board catchment areas. Contact was made on Friday with a psychiatrist whom it was hoped would begin an assessment of the boy's therapeutic needs. It was likely this assessment would begin by June 5th.
Mr Justice Kelly said it appeared the boy was just being contained. This was a boy with profound physical and behavioural problems and major family difficulties. In sending the child to Ballydowd, he hoped the boy would receive therapeutic involvement but he had received none.
Now, the judge added, the SWAHB was telling him it had learned just last Friday therapeutic services might become available. He asked Ms McLoughlin if it was a fair assessment that catchment areas took precedence over the welfare of a child detained on foot of a court order.
Ms McLoughlin agreed the situation was not in the child's best interest. The judge said he would put it "stronger than that".
