No psychiatric health service for troubled teens

Evelyn Ring

This is the situation almost a year after the Department of Health agreed that more resources should be used to bridge the serious gap in psychiatrist services for adolescents in that particular age group.

Fine Gael’s Dan Neville has accused Health Minister Micheál Martin of putting the lives of troubled adolescents at risk by failing to provide adequate psychiatric health support services.

“The only additional funding in the mental health area in 2004 is in relation to improvements at the Central Mental Health Hospital in Dublin, where the conditions are pre-Dickensian,” he said.

Adult psychiatric services are not resourced to deal with adolescents, said Mr Neville.

“Patients of this age require a developmental perspective and appropriate multidisciplinary input, which would centre around family, school and social interventions,” he said.

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 Health Act introduced in 2001, however, children are defined as 18 or under.

Dr Ganter said difficulties had been caused by some adult psychiatrists who only want 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.

Dr Ganter pointed out that it was only during adolescence that people usually began to present with more long-term illnesses, such as schizophrenia and manic depression.

“The service that is available is hugely restricted and it is not able to respond fast enough because there are such long waiting lists.

“In some areas, the waiting time is up to a year, or longer. That’s the problem; there are services there, but they are under-resourced and there are not enough of them,” she said.

The second report of the Working Party on Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and a paper developed subsequently by the Department of Health and published in June 2003 both support the development of an adolescent service up to 18.

“Nothing has happened since that paper was published and there was no money ring-fenced in this year’s Budget in order to implement that document,” said Dr Ganter.

The Irish College of Psychiatrists, which represents the interests of around 500 psychiatrists, wants a specific service developed for 14 to 18-year-olds.

In particular, the college wants services for those aged between 16 and 17, who have none.

Dr Ganter welcomed the fact that, despite their difficult circumstances, parents had complained on the airways that there is no psychiatric service for their troubled children.