HSE denies 40% of teens court-ordered care

Almost half of all vulnerable teens the High Court sent for urgent “special care placements” last year due to their complex issues were instead put on HSE waiting lists

Figures obtained by the Irish Examiner after a highly critical Health Information Quality Authority report into concerns over care in one unit show that support was unavailable in more than 40% of cases.

According to the records last year, 83 applications were made by social workers to ensure teens with serious and complex issues, including at times violent tendencies, could be placed in special care placements for their own benefit.

Of these cases, which can only be approved by the High Court as the individuals involved are not criminals and have done nothing wrong, 38 were approved.

However , despite this, by the end of last year 16 of these teenagers remained on waiting lists for help — with a lack of adequate resources a key reason why.

The figures were supplied to Independent senator Jillian van Turnhout, and her Fine Gael colleague, Colm Burke, by Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald in late December.

They emerged a day after a damning Hiqa report raised serious concerns over a high-support unit in North Dublin.

At the time of the unannounced Hiqa inspection, the facility, Crannóg Nua, was helping four teens with serious issues, including drug use, violent tendencies and incidents of arson.

Two of these teens should have been placed in more specialised care placements due to the seriousness of their conditions.

However, because these services were not available, they remained at the high-support unit — resulting in some of the teens being locked into parts of the facility for 12 hours a day for their own safety.

Similar concerns were also raised by Hiqa about the Rath na nÓg unit in Co Monaghan last October, resulting in the facility being shut down by the HSE.

Reacting to the latest figures, the head of the HSE’s Child and Family Agency, Gordon Jeyes, insisted plans are in place to address the difficulties by doubling the number of specialist care places for children and teens by 2016.

He added that improvements are being made to services, despite ongoing concerns about the sector and its ability to ensure vulnerable children and teens are receiving the care they need.

At the end of 2013, a total of 359 teens across the country were in 138 special care placement units.