Gardaí take mentally ill patients into care

A FREEZE on recruiting staff to the Health Service Executive has lead to an increase in cases where gardaí place mentally ill people in care against their will.

A number of “authorised officers” were promised by the HSE to help with the involuntary detention of people with mental and psychological illnesses.

The promise was part of the Mental Health Act 2001 which was designed to increase the rights of patients being placed into psychiatric care.

But the system of authorised officers was not rolled out and as a result, gardaí are the ones taking mentally ill patients away to care.

The Mental Health Commission said the system is implying a connection between criminality and mental illness.

The first annual conference to discuss the Mental Health Act took place in Dublin yesterday, hosted by the Mental Health Commission.

The conference heard that one in six applications for involuntary admission now come from gardaí, compared with one in 12 before the act was implemented. This is because families are increasingly going to gardaí with concerns about their relative in the absence of health services staff.

Figures presented show there were 1,582 involuntary admissions in the first nine months of 2007.

Commission chairman Edmund O’Dea expressed concern over “the increase in the proportion of applications initiated by the gardaí” and said “the development of the authorised officer system is an urgent priority”.

He told delegates: “The authorised officer would have an important role in giving support in a crisis and providing information to users, carers and relatives and looking at the least restrictive options.”

Mr O’Dea said he was also concerned about the “apparent tardiness” in the implementation of the recommendations of the national policy document A Vision for Change, published in January 2006. He expressed concern over “the failure to appoint the National Mental Health Service Directorate — a body that was considered key in managing the change programme advocated in A Vision for Change”.

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