Staff shortage suspends children’s mental health service

The staffing shortages will have a knock-on effect on daytime psychiatric assessment of children and young people.

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 writes Catherine Shanahan.

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.