Madam, - Mary Raftery is incorrect when she claims (Opinion, May 26th) that psychiatric professionals are delaying the introduction of the Mental Treatment Act - Part 2 of which provides certain legal protection for involuntarily detained patients. For close to a decade, the IHCA has made proposals to the Green Paper, subsequent White Paper and Oireachtas debate on the Mental Treatment Bill. We have supported its concepts and still do.
Let me emphasise that our difficulty is not with the legislation but with the failure of the Mental Health Commission and Health Services Executive to provide the resources and manpower to ensure that the very strict timetables and legal constraints provided for in Part 2 of the Act will be adhered to at all times.
Considerable progress was made at a meeting between the Mental Health Commission and the IHCA Psychiatrist Group on May 27th. The MHC is now embarking on visits to more than 50 designated (psychiatric) hospitals to ensure that the facilities necessary to implement the Act are in position. We are advised that these visits should be completed by the end of July.
We have also been informed that the documentation will be piloted, with the co-operation of the IHCA, consultant psychiatrists and GPs, for a four- to six-week period over the summer. It is hoped that through this pilot procedure, any unforeseen difficulties with the complex documentation will come to the attention of the MHC.
A practitioners' guide to the legislation is now nearing completion. This mammoth job undertaken by the MHC is a crucial part of the preparatory work.
Many other examples may be quoted of basic preparatory work which needs to be completed before the Act can be implemented. The IHCA's decision to recommend its members not to apply for positions on Mental Health Tribunals or Independent Medical Opinion Panels was the only sanction available to us to bring the necessary pressure on the MHC and HSE to complete the preparatory work before rather than after implementing the legislation.
Rather than delaying the MHC timetable, our action and our co-operation will ensure that the resources and facilities to give patients the legal protection to which they are entitled will be put into place all the sooner. - Yours, etc,
FINBARR FITZPATRICK, Secretary General, IHCA, Dundrum Office Park, Dublin 14.