Minister backs mental health sell-off

The Health Minister Mary Harney tonight backed calls for Ireland’s remaining 15 mental hospitals to be closed down and the money from their sale ring-fenced for developing community-based mental health care.

A report by the expert group on mental health policy recommended person-centred treatment which focused on a holistic approach and recovery and rehabilitation.

It said all psychiatric hospitals should be closed and the resources re-invested into community-based mental health provision.

Welcoming the report, the Tánaiste said there would be sufficient money from the sale of land and buildings to finance the €796m required for capital investment in new facilities.

She announced an additional €25m in the health budget this year to implement the report.

Ms Harney said there was a need to redevelop the totally inadequate facilities at the Central Mental Hospital in south Dublin.

The land at Dundrum – where the hospital currently stands – is extraordinarily valuable and would more than pay for the institution to be redeveloped elsewhere, she said.

“Obviously the closure of 15 standalone mental hospitals may cause controversy in some areas,” she said.

“This is not about reducing resources or staffing in this area, on the contrary it is about increasing them.”

In moving from institutions to a community approach, the Health Service Executive (HSE) will have to employ an additional 1,800 people to support multi-disciplinary teams, the Tánaiste said.

Ms Harney said she thought the introduction of the extra staff over the next seven to 10 years was feasible.

There were 3,556 people in psychiatric hospitals at the end of 2004 – down from 12,484 in 1984 – of which 1,242 had been institutionalised for more than five years.

The report, the first for 20 years, recommended managing the service in catchment areas of 250,000 to 400,000 people and expertise should be provided by community mental health teams.

Services should be provided where people live, with more home-based treatments and a reduction in hospital admissions.

The report said acute admissions should be accommodated in modern psychiatric units in mainstream hospitals, while many over-65s were better served in homes for the elderly than mental hospitals.

Difficult to manage patients should be placed in close observation beds in high support units.

The expert group said the full implementation of the recommendations contained in the report would increase non-capital spending on mental health from 6.98% of total health expenditure to 8.24%.

Ms Harney described the report as exciting and said it gave the health service and Government values from which to develop policy in the area of mental health.

“Good mental health is an important component of health generally and shouldn’t be seen as separate.

“Mental well-being is essential for our general health and we’ve all got an interest in this area,” she said.