MORE than 1,400 mental health patients are continuing to live in inappropriate conditions in old psychiatric hospitals despite a damning report more than a year ago urging the Government to close them.

NOW that the world has changed utterly, it is unlikely that tolerable psychiatric hospitals will be built across the country. That does not mean that they are not needed. Nor does it forgive us for tolerating conditions that were described in a 2007 report by the Irish Psychiatric Association as Dickensian, deplorable and appalling.

MORE than €6.5 million was spent on treating 39 Irish people with mental illnesses in Britain over a three-year period from 2005.

MORE than €6.5 million was spent on treating 39 Irish people with mental illnesses in Britain over a three-year period from 2005.

THE HSE has been accused of letting down the “most unfortunate” patients in society as it emerged that not a cent of the €2 million-plus raised from the sale of former psychiatric hospital property in 2006 and 2007 went back into mental health services.

THE Health Service Executive has been accused of asset stripping our psychiatric services for some time.

YESTERDAY a Nigerian, who has been charged with trying to sleep naked in a crib in the Redemptorist Church in Limerick on December 29, was remanded to prison following an assault in a hotel where he was accommodated by the State.

OPPOSITION parties yesterday accused the Government of “the ultimate U-turn” for failing to ensure reinvestment in mental health services of funds raised from the sale of psychiatric hospital lands.

The Irish Psychiatric Association (IPA) and the Irish Mental Health Coalition (IMHC) issued what amounted to damning progress reports yesterday to mark the second anniversary of the publication of A Vision for Change, the Government’s framework document for mental health.

ASSESSING the mental health of persons from other cultures can take three times longer than native assessments, mental health experts have warned.

THE junior health minister with responsibility for mental health has announced plans to shut down a mental health facility which has been closed for the past five years.

PSYCHIATRISTS have fired an angry broadside at the Government for making almost no progress in the development of mental health services.

MENTAL health patient and carer groups intend to express their anger at the Government’s slow progress in reforming mental health services at the polls.

THERE has been a dramatic shift in the gender of young heroin users — most are now teenage girls and are likely to be involved in a relationship with a male heroin user.

ALCOHOL abuse receives more attention from Government than mental illness because of the stigma mental illness carries, former political adviser and learning disability campaigner Fergus Finlay said yesterday.

MENTALLY ill patients in Kildare receive the lowest per capita funding in the country, 13 times less than those using a Dublin-based service.

NEWLY appointed psychiatrists have no option but to prescribe drugs for their patients because they lack the basic services they need to do their job properly, a conference heard yesterday.

ANTI-depressant research and development is at a standstill since the post-war years due to over-regulation and the pharmaceutical industry’s fear of risk-taking, according to a top psychiatrist.

An anti-depressant prescribed almost 200,000 times a year to Irish patients has been directly linked to 118 deaths in the UK.

AN anti-depressant prescribed almost 200,000 times a year in Ireland has been directly linked to 118 deaths in Britain.

Psychiatrists are looking for special rules in relation to the implementation of the planned smoking ban.

THE expert group charting the way forward for mental health services here must look beyond the outdated British model, a top psychiatrist has warned.

A document which sets the standard for mental health care in this country is being launched in Dublin this morning.

Fine Gael's Dan Neville has called for an immediate review of mental health services by the Government.

MORE than 40 independent organisations, including Amnesty International, have criticised the lack of consultation on a planned review of Ireland’s mental healthcare system.