IF IRISH society values care and support for people with mental health issues, it will have to commit to far greater resources to the area, a senior Health Service Executive official has said.
Expenditure in this area has dropped from the internationally recommended figure of 12 per cent of health budgets to just five per cent, HSE assistant national director for mental health Martin Rogan said.
He was speaking at the Pfizer/ Irish Timeshealth forum, chaired by Dr Jacky Jones in Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, Glaway, last night.
Also speaking at the forum were Headstrong founding director Dr Tony Bates, NUI Galway law lecturer Dr Mary Keys, and Jigsaw youth panel member Rowan Marshall.
Some 88 per cent of that HSE allocation was spent on staff costs, Mr Rogan told the forum, but some 1,500 staff had been lost in the last 18 months and some 600 more were due to leave.
The major focus of investment was on young people’s mental health, he said, and the HSE was also working with a large number of non-governmental organisations in the sector, he said.
However, funding was not the only issue, as there was a “huge problem with attitude” among those working in the profession, NUIG law lecturer Dr Mary Keys said.
While there were “pockets of excellence” around the country, people were “not seen as individuals”, Dr Keys said.
“A lot of it is about changing mindsets, and it is not just about money.”
Legislation was and still is an “enabling part” of the mental health system which Ireland has had, she added.
“Locking people up for an indefinite period” had been the norm until very recently when there was a move to begin looking at people’s rights, she said.
People are “still angry” with the way mental health services had engaged with people, even though there were indications of significant change, Dr Tony Bates of Headstrong said.
“Language” was very important, he said, as it “alienates us from what is wrong”.
In the 27 years he had worked in St James’s Hospital in Dublin, he had never met a schizophrenic, but had met people with particular views, he said.
