Minister defends psychiatric services

Mental health minister Kathleen Lynch has said there are no resource issues in psychiatric services in Carlow, Kilkenny and South Tipperary, even though nine people died in the service between August 2011 and January 2013.

Mental health specialists in the area have said they have “no confidence” in the clinical management of the service which they describe as “unsafe”. Nine of the area’s 13 psychiatrists voiced these “serious concerns” to the HSE at the end of 2012, but little changed, they said.

Six months later they wrote a similar letter to Ms Lynch but said they never received a “proper response”. Since the end of 2012, the psychiatrists have refused to take part in HSE clinical governance meetings as they believe the system “isn’t safe”.