Plea for Harney to scrap relocation of mental hospital

A woman whose two sons were treated at the Central Mental Hospital today said it was shameful for the Government to plough ahead with relocation plans despite the advice of experts.

Mother-of-six Susie Doheny, from Co Donegal, said the pair were admitted to the Dundrum facility after suffering serious mental illness for several years.

One of the boys was discharged after four years in care while the other is still receiving treatment.

"We've been through the hoop for years going through one service to another, watching our children deteriorate through the years, nobody listening," she said.

"Eventually both of my children ended up in the Central Mental Hospital. For that I had very mixed feelings. I was very scared and I was also very relieved.

"All I could see were the gates, the doors and the keys. But through the time in the hospital getting to know staff, getting to know the level of care that goes on in the hospital, I had come to know the hospital as a wonderful place.

"I just think that it is an awful shame that the people who made this decision totally disregarded everything that the experts have said and that everybody except the Government are against this move."

Ms Doheny, a member of the Hospital Carers' group, said her family battled for years for proper support and care for her two boys, who are now aged in their 20s and 30s, but praised the treatment they have received in Dundrum.

While she said the building needs redeveloped to make it more modern, she believes its location, in the centre of a bustling community, helps patients recover.

"There are facilities in Dundrum, you have a community built up around the hospital, and the sounds that you hear are of traffic, children coming and going and people talking.

"There is a sense that they [patients] are not isolated but part of the community."

"I asked my son how he would feel about moving to Thornton Hall and he said 'everybody will think I'm a prisoner'."

The proposal to relocate the Central Mental Hospital to the Thornton Hall complex was first made when the site was chosen for the so-called new 'super-prison' in January 2005.

There has been widespread opposition to the proposal from a range of groups including Amnesty International, The Irish Penal Reform Trust, Aware, the Psychiatric Nurses Association, Inclusion Ireland and Schizophrenia Ireland.

"There is no way that my son would leave that hospital and walk anywhere if he was in isolation as it's such a hostile environment in Thornton Hall. I'm begging the minister and the Health Service Executive to re-examine this decision," Ms Doheny said.