HSE sends abused teen to adult hospital

THE mother of a suicidal Wexford teenage girl who survived a six-year litany of sexual abuse has criticised the health authorities for offering her daughter a bed in an adult psychiatric hospital.

The 16-year-old girl, who has attempted to kill herself as many as eight times, has been in a paediatric unit in Wexford General Hospital while her family waits for an adolescent psychiatric bed to become available.

She had to be treated for more injuries over the weekend after repeatedly banging her hands against a wall, with X-rays taken to ensure she had not broken any bones.

However, the only place the Health Service Executive (HSE) could offer the girl was in St Senan’s Psychiatric Hospital in Enniscorthy — normally reserved for over-18s.

“It’s just for adults, not for children and would be totally unsuitable for her,” her mother told the Irish Examiner yesterday.

“She had agreed first that she would go up and give it a try, but that’s only for older people. It’s not for her, there’s no counsellors or anything there. She’s not going to get any help there. I can’t take her home, I can’t take that responsibility.”

The young girl was sexually abused by an ex-partner of Pauline from the age of five or six until the age of 12, when she informed the authorities. Her abuser is now in prison but the effects of what he did have been long-lasting.

After her daughter’s latest suicide attempt just over four weeks ago, her mother had been hoping that a bed would become available at the private St John of God Hospital in Stillorgan, south Dublin.

The HSE said that it has a “standing arrangement” with some providers of specialist child and adolescent care in the private sector, such as St John of God, but this arrangement has so far had no impact for the girl.

According to her mother, her 16-year-old had “a good day” on Sunday but was back to her quiet, withdrawn self yesterday: “She’s not saying anything. She doesn’t want to talk and I don’t want to push her. They’re [doctors] not going to push her either because they’re afraid she’ll go off the rails again.”

The HSE said yesterday that in “certain and very rare circumstances and in accordance with clinical direction, admissions of persons under 18 years of age may occur” at St Senan’s Hospital.

Wexford Fine Gael TD Paul Kehoe accused the Government of failing to invest in psychiatric services for children.

“The HSE goes out and advertises about depression and suicide and so on, but there’s no use advertising unless you have the services to back it up,” he said. “Talk is cheap, but putting the services in place isn’t cheap and this is where the Government has been cutting back over the years.”