YET ANOTHER horror story of administrative abuse has emerged, and those responsible are the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health. This time, it involves children and their forced detention in adult mental health units because appropriate social work services are not available in the community. A further, unsurprising finding by the Mental Health Commission is that many of these mistreated children come from deprived areas of Limerick.
The Department of Health is responsible for policy. Its overstaffed sections produce worthy, progressive plans for the improvement of community care and health services. Minister for Health Mary Harney and the Government then allocate insufficient resources and in the dogfight that follows, services for under-represented groups in society, such as children, tend to lose out.
The Mental Health Commission has complained that, because of a lack of engagement by community care social work services and other partner agencies, children are being inappropriately referred to mental health providers. The social stigma attached to mental health problems could unfairly label these young people, the report says. And it identifies Limerick as a city where emergency childcare services are not backed up with either appropriate bed or intensive community support. It found that children as young as 13 years are being admitted to adult mental health units there.
A lack of capacity in community treatment and care facilities can be traced to a shortage of funding. The number of staff working in the service is less than half of that promised by Government. The situation is unlikely to improve because of a recent budgetary decision to cut €48 million from primary care services. Mental health will also lose a further 1.8 per cent of its funding. That may appear a reasonable reduction in the current crisis. But it does further damage to a service that has seen its percentage of overall medical funding fall by two-thirds during the past 40 years.
Last year, a pilot youth drop-in project in Galway provided guidance on how young people struggling with adolescence can be helped at no great expense. If a non-judgmental ear and appropriate care are provided – as in Galway – the danger of self-harm can be greatly reduced. That would represent a breakthrough because Ireland has the highest suicide rate in the EU. The Galway project has pointed a way forward. But secure accommodation and appropriate community care are also required to cater for children with social needs.