The fact that children as young as six are presenting to hospital after having attempted suicide is shocking and deserves serious attention, Dr Jimmy Devins, the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, has said.
He was responding yesterday to the publication of a review of attendances by children at two Dublin paediatric hospitals over a five- to 10-year period as a result of deliberate self-harm. The review noted that 439 children had attended and the youngest was just six. The oldest was 16, but overall 10 per cent of the children were under 11.
The review was presented to delegates at the world congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention in Killarney yesterday and one of its authors, Carol Fitzpatrick, professor of child psychiatry at University College Dublin, pointed out that half of the children who presented had been living with two parents, 29 per cent lived with a single parent and 15 per cent of them were in the care of the State.
She also said all of them should have been attending school but in fact 15 per cent of them were not, often because their behaviour had resulted in them being excluded from their school.
Almost half of them were not admitted to a paediatric bed, even though guidelines from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in the UK recommend all young people presenting with suicidal behaviour be admitted for assessment and to allow them some respite, she added.
Prof Fitzpatrick also said the waiting time for a child or adolescent to be assessed and treated by the mental health services can be 18 months to two years.
"Once children present with suicidal behaviour, yes they do get support then - but you wonder if support had been provided earlier would it have come to that," she said.
Dr Devins, who attended the official opening of the conference, said this was "shocking new information" and "certainly deserves serious consideration".
He said the waiting times for children needing psychiatric assessment were of concern to him.
"We have to make sure that there is no waiting list of any consequence, particularly in relation to self-harm and suicide fixation. In that regard, we are putting in place a dedicated nurse or health professional in each A&E in the country to whom any incidence of self-harm presenting in the accident and emergency will be referred."