330 disabled in mental care - but they should not be there

MORE THAN 300 people with intellectual disabilities are still in psychiatric institutions even though the Department of Health admits they should not be there.

Some are in the same ward as patients with psychotic illnesses.

Figures from the National Intellectual Disability Database show there are 330 people inappropriately placed in psychiatric institutions around the country.

The inspector of mental hospitals, Professor Dermot Walsh, warned recently that significant problems remained despite "some progress" in transferring intellectually disabled people from unsatisfactory and unsuitable accommodation in psychiatric hospitals to more appropriate settings.

"In some hospitals, most noticeably in St Luke's Hospital, Clonmel, such persons were mixed indiscriminately with functionally psychotic patients," Prof Walsh stated in his recent annual report.

The National Association for the Mentally Handicapped of Ireland (NAMHI) said it will be calling on the Department of Health to fund the development of separate housing for people with intellectual disabilities inappropriately placed in psychiatric hospitals. NAMHI general secretary Deirdre Carroll said: "The numbers are not huge and they can do it. The people I am talking about are living in awful circumstances and they shouldn't be. These people are not mentally ill and should be in appropriate housing, based in the community or in smaller units rather than in big psychiatric hospitals."

The psychiatric hospital with the greatest number of persons with intellectual disabilities is St Ita's Hospital, Portrane, Co Dublin.

The hospital has 218 people with intellectual disabilities, but they are in the separate St Joseph's service.

Fingal County Council got full planning permission to develop a 60-unit bungalow on the hospital grounds a year ago but it is still on the Department of Health's possible list of "priority" capital developments.

NAMHI said 12 patients with intellectual disabilities were admitted to St Ita's Hospital last year. "That is quite a large number coming into a service that you are trying to close down," Ms Carroll said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said 307 of the 330 people identified as inappropriately placed in psychiatric institutions have had an alternative residential facility "identified" for them while the remainder required day services, residential support services, or increased support within a psychiatric hospital.

The spokesperson said the needs of the group would be addressed in the National Disability Strategy, announced earlier this week. She added that a programme of relocation of patients from St Ita's had been underway for many years. Five residents had been relocated recently and an additional 28 would move to more appropriate facilities by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the chairperson of the National Disability Authority (NDA), Angela Kerins, said the authority is examining the Disability Bill, 2004 and has not expressed any reservations at this stage about sections of the proposed legislation.