The planned opening of a €2m, high-observation psychiatric unit — which has remained closed since last December, due to staff shortages — has again been postponed, a nurses’ union has claimed.

Cormac Williams of the Psychiatric Nurses’ Association (Letters, Irish Examiner, July 8) mentions the sick leave ‘entitlement’ of front line workers being cut. Interesting he uses the word ‘entitlement’.

A new €3m high-observation unit in a hospital psychiatric department remains closed due to a nursing shortage.

I refer to your front-page story of February 6, in relation to overpayment of salary to some HSE employees.

Despite calls from local politicians and the public, the HSE has no plans to reduce parking charges at Kerry General Hospital in Tralee.

The HSE has been accused of "dragging its feet" in implementing safety measures at a psychiatric unit where 44 incidents of alleged violence on staff took place in a three-month period.

The Psychiatric Nurses’ Association said it is to meet with the HSE to discuss safety issues at the psychiatric unit at Kerry General Hospital in Tralee.

Alleged assaults on staff are continuing at a hospital’s mental health unit, with 11 incidents in June, the Psychiatric Nurses’ Association (PNA) have claimed.

The Health and Safety Authority has been asked to inspect a hospital’s psychiatric unit where six nurses have been allegedly assaulted in the last fortnight.

I refer to your recent article (Irish Examiner, Jan 8) where Minister Kathleen Lynch claims that she successfully fought new mental health staff delays.

Christmas has come early for animal lover Cormac Williams whose pet donkey, named Tulip, has given birth to twin foals.

I refer to your report titled ”Government urged to reaffirm commitment to mental health” (Irish Examiner, Oct 23) in which Minister with Responsibility for Mental Health, Kathleen Lynch, states that the €15m dropped from the mental health budget of €35m specifically set aside and ringfenced in 2014 to populate and enhance the roll-out of a community mental health service, will be restored in 2015.

The Psychiatric Nurses’ Association (PNA) yesterday claimed conditions at a dedicated unit in Kerry General Hospital, where three male nurses were assaulted by a disturbed patient, are dangerous.

I refer to your review (Life/Style, Feb 7) of the history of mental healthcare in Ireland by Richard Fitzpatrick.

I refer to your front page report (Nov 12) on the high level of suicide in Co Kerry and Co Cork.

Another weekend — another march against HSE cutbacks.

For the first time in 160 years, an imposing building which dominates Killarney, Co Kerry, and which once had more than 1,000 residents, was unoccupied last night.

People from south Kerry have called on politicians across the spectrum to support their campaign for the retention of a mental health facility.

The Psychiatric Nurses Association is calling for a full and independent inquiry into what it is calling a “Leas Cross” scenario, following the death of a woman recently moved from a psychiatric facility to a nursing home.

Wards in a psychiatric hospital earmarked for closure were “drab, bare, institutionalised and smelly”.

The union representing nurses at St Finan’s psychiatric hospital in Killarney has complained to the HSE about a private, out-of-hours GP service availing of what the union claims is rent-free accommodation at the hospital.

Senior HSE management have asked a psychiatric union representative to formally retract claims made about patients moved to nursing homes against their wishes and who later died.

Lives are being lost on a daily basis due to under-funding and under-staffing in the mental health services, the head of Kerry’s Psychiatric Nurses Association has warned.

I REFER to your report and editorial comment (Jan 17) on the 2012 HSE National Service Plan.

A LARGE number of nurse retirements is impacting severely on the care of psychiatric patients in Kerry, it has been claimed.

An open letter to President Higgins

It MIGHT be flippant to suggest that conditions at the Central Mental Hospital (CMH) are ‘crazy’, but before long we could be wondering if some of those responsible for those conditions are not in need of treatment themselves.

A VICTORIAN-ERA psychiatric hospital in Co Kerry, which has been blacklisted by inspectors’ reports for years, will finally close in 2014.

DOMESTIC workers may be forced to administer medication to people with mental health problems after 5pm and at weekends as the staffing crisis within the mental health services escalates.

I REFER to a number of reports in last week’s Irish Examiner referring to comments by the Offaly and south Kerry coroners in relation to the increased incidents of suicide among the elderly and people in rural areas, and to the “export” of Irish people with intellectual disability outside of the country due to the lack of appropriate care facilities to deal with their needs.

AN urgent call has been made for the building of alternative facilities to replace a Victorian psychiatric hospital, due for closure in Kerry.

FOLLOWING your front page report and editorial comment in relation to the alarming levels of suicide in Ireland (April 29), it is interesting to note that in the current year only 5.4% of the total health budget will be spent on mental health services nationally.

THE retirement of an unprecedented number of psychiatric nurses in Kerry will have serous implications for mental health services in the county, a nurses’ union leader warned.