State must provide more mental health beds for young, says IMO

UP TO 1,300 young people will develop psychotic disorders this year, yet there are just 20 inpatient beds available to those who need hospitalisation.

Proposing a motion deploring the reduction of publicly-funded child and adolescent inpatients’ beds at the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) agm, consultant psychiatrist Dr Siobhán Barry said it was time for the Department of Health to follow the lead of the private sector.

“For instance, there is a new inpatient unit as St John of God’s in Dublin, a totally private facility, where the primary age group is 14 to 18, but they treat people as young as 12 and as old as 20. Clearly, that is a crucial age in terms of mental health development.”

Dr Barry said private medicine had “recognised the gap” in service provision and responded to it, but the public service had not. She said the interim report of the suicide task force had called for more beds, but to no avail.

Irish College of Psychiatrists chairwoman Dr Kate Ganter said two proposed child and adolescent psychiatric units in Cork and Limerick had failed to get off the ground despite the huge outcry every time a young person committed suicide or got in trouble with the law.

Dr Barry said of the 1,300 young people who will develop psychotic disorders this year, “between 10% and 15% will end their life by suicide, the majority within the first five years of developing the psychotic disorder.” She called on the Government to recognise the benefits of early intervention and treatment programmes.

“This argument is about investing to save. There is very little evidence of the department helping in this area. As a result these young people will develop more serious illness, ending up eventually in the Central Mental Hospital.”

Doctors also debated the obesity/diabetes crisis, with one delegate declaring: “We’re the first generation that will look into the abyss of children not necessarily outliving their parents.” Delegates passed motions calling for the removal of soft drink and snack food dispensers from State health and educational facilities; a ban on school tours to beverage and confectionery factories; action to tackle school insurance which limits playground activity and tax incentives and/or subsidies for members of gyms and sports clubs.