Mental health experts have urged the Government to review its decision to relocate the Central Mental Hospital to the Thornton Hall prison site.
The Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children has been told that the move would further isolate and exclude patients, increase the stigma of mental illness and cause distress to patients’ relatives.
The Government argues that the relocation is consistent with A Vision for Change, which recommended the Dundrum hospital should be replaced or remodelled for care and treatment in a modern, up-to-date humane setting.
Committee members visited the proposed site of the new hospital in north county Dublin this morning.
Afterwards they met with the Mental Health Commission and the Irish Mental Health Coalition to hear their views on the planned relocation.
Dr Edmond O’Dea, chairman of the Mental Health Commission said the move was “not consistent with best practice and thinking or with the contemporary view of mental illness”.
The commission’s chief executive Bríd Clarke said the hospital’s location, beside a new prison, would promote isolation and exclusion and increase the stigma already experienced by people with a mental illness.
She said Thornton Hall was not well serviced with public transport and this would place an additional burden on families trying to maintain contact with their relatives.
John Saunders, chairman of the Irish Mental Health Coalition said the plan was “entirely incompatible with the rehabilitative principles of mental health services”.
Mr Saunders said although the IMHC welcomed the proposal to replace or remodel the Central Mental Hospital, the Thornton Hall location is "wholly inappropriate".
Citing research showing that people with mental health difficulties already face discrimination and stigma, the IMHC argues that putting the hospital next to the prison would further stigmatise patients and contribute to the criminalisation of mental illness.
Mr Saunders added it was understood the HSE had to do a cost-benefit analysis of the Thornton proposal, and he called for early publication of that report.
“Analysis conducted by Mr Jim Power, chief economist with Friends First, earlier this year clearly showed that a new Central Mental Hospital could be developed on the existing site at Dundrum on a cost-neutral basis,” Mr Saunders said.
Caroline McGrath, director of the coalition, said the move would be very difficult for patients’ children. She said they would be entering a community “dominated by a penal institution” and they would be oblivious to the fact that the hospital and prison would have separate managerial structures.
Health committee members were strongly critical of the Department of Health and HSE for failing to attend today’s meeting, despite being invited. The committee will now hear from both bodies in September before it decides on taking further action.
The IMHC recently helped compile the Patients Not Prisoners report with the CMH Carer’s Group and Schizophrenia Ireland. In the report, Mr Power said that selling 14 acres of the 34-acre site in Dundrum could raise up to €140 million, enough to build a new facility, which would cost around €100 million.
The IMHC comprises a core group of five organisations - Amnesty International, Bodywhys - The Eating Disorder Association of Ireland, Grow, Irish Advocacy Network, and Schizophrenia Ireland.
Speaking today, Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly accused the Government of cold-hearted insensitivity.
“It is abundantly clear that, having done a bad deal on the Thornton Hall site, the Government is now trying to extract the maximum value from it and the sale of the current Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum. This should not be done at the expense of patients with mental health problems," Dr Reilly said.
"Despite the difficulties of the Brian Cowen recession, this Government has failed to produce its own cost-benefit analysis to date and so has no justification for its intransigence in pursuing this cold-hearted and insensitive move.”
The Minister of State with special responsibility for Equality, Disability Issues and Mental Health, John Moloney, has in the past stressed that redevelopment of the hospital is a stand-alone project, independent of the new prison, that it will have a separate entrance and road access, and be run by the HSE.