Ombudsman for Children to tell UN of problems in child psychiatric services

THE Ombudsman for Children is to brief the United Nations on the urgent need to end the placing of Irish children in adult psychiatric units at a briefing in Geneva next month.

Emily Logan is understood to have already raised a number of her concerns about child and adolescent mental health services in a submission sent to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The lack of in-patient beds for children with psychiatric problems has already been raised by Amnesty International, the Expert Group on Mental Health Policy and the Irish College of Psychiatrists.

These groups have called for improved health promotion, early intervention services and increased psychiatric bed numbers for children, and particularly for the 16-18 age group — many of whom have been placed in adult centres.

“We have concerns that they are a group whose voice won’t easily be heard because of the stigma of having children with mental health problems,” Ms Logan told Medicine Weekly.

The Ombudsman for Children’s Office has been contacted directly by many children who have been placed in adult psychiatric units, where they reported experiencing “feelings of fear and distress”.

Since Ireland ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, the Government has been obliged to submit progress reports to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, outlining how the State is fulfilling its commitments to young people.

The first report was made in 1998 and the UN Committee is due to review the Government’s second periodic report in September, but has already received the Ombudsman’s own independent report on Ireland’s progress.