200 children needlessly on waiting list for psychiatric hospital care

More than 200 children were needlessly put on a waiting list for acute psychiatric hospital care, it emerged yesterday.

Minister of State for Mental Health, Kathleen Lynch, said her department had examined the waiting list for child and adolescent mental health services earlier this year

“When we looked at it we discovered there were over 200 children that should not have been on the list at all — they should have been dealt with in primary care,” she told a meeting of the Committee on Health and Children.