Staff shortage suspends children’s mental health service

Children experiencing a mental health crisis will be unable to access an emergency out-of-hours on-call service at the only two emergency departments (EDs) in Cork City after the HSE was forced to suspend the service indefinitely due to chronic staffing shortages.

Last week, the Irish Examiner reported that the Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) ED service was unavailable on Monday, but since then, the problem has escalated.

On Friday, the HSE took the step of writing to GPs in the city advising that they have had to “postpone out-of-hours on-call to the EDs until staffing levels improve”.