‘Psychiatric help for teens inadequate’

PSYCHIATRIC services to deal with a section of the country’s teenagers are seriously inadequate, the Mental Health Commission said yesterday.

The provision of care should be based on need and not age, the commission insisted.

Because of an artificial cut-off point, teenagers between the age of 16 and 18 have no psychiatric health service available to them.

The commission wants child and adolescent mental health services to be available on a 24-hour, seven-day basis and to be in a position to respond to emergency referrals.

Priority must be given to the “quite modest” provision of 120 beds nationally, it stated.

“While the need for beds is quite low, we simply don’t have them,” said Mental Health Services Inspector, Dr Teresa Carey, at the launch of the inspectorate’s first report.

Every year about 600 girls and 300 boys per 100,000 population between the ages of 15 and 19 deliberately harm themselves, with 1% dying by suicide within a year.

Irish College of Psychiatrists chair, Dr Kate Ganter, said that, traditionally, child and adolescent psychiatrists saw patients up to the age of 16.

Under the Mental Act introduced in 2001, however, children are defined as aged 18 or under.

Dr Ganter said difficulties had been caused by some adult psychiatrists who only wanted to treat people over the age of 18.

Adult psychiatrists did see patients between 16 and 18 but difficulties arose because they lacked the resources needed to treat this particular age category.

The commission has also urged the Government to establish community-based services to look after people with mental health problems rather than force them into hospitals.

Chairperson of the Irish Patients’ Association Stephen McMahon said it was disturbing to hear that almost 2,000 patients had been waiting 20 years to get treatment in the community.