Families unable to access specialist psychiatric service as consultant quits

Children and families seeking support for emotional, behavioural, and mental health difficulties will have no access to a specialised service for the foreseeable future in Cork North Lee, following the recent departure of a consultant psychiatrist.

The HSE wrote to GPs last week telling them that any new referrals to the North Lee North Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) team could not be taken on because “Our team’s Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist recently left the service”.

The team can only offer new referrals “signposting” — essentially redirection to other services — at a time when there are 162 children on the CAMHS North Lee waiting list.

The team continues to see young people already referred.

The letter advises GPs, if they have “immediate concerns for the mental health of a child”, to refer them to an on-call child psychiatry service, accessible via the emergency departments (EDs) of Cork University Hospital and the Mercy University Hospital (MUH), “where if appropriate, they will undergo psychiatric evaluation”. The on-call ED team also provides cover to paediatric wards.

The on-call service was suspended temporarily last year due to severe staffing constraints, but has since resumed.

Local GP and Cork City Councillor John Sheehan said he was not surprised CAMHS were losing staff.

“They are burned out and they are not getting enough supports,” he said.

He pointed to the situation in the South-East where three paediatric psychiatrists indicated earlier this year that they intended to leave the service, with one of them, Dr Kieran Moore, describing it as “untenable and unsafe”.

The HSE said in a statement that every effort was being made “to recruit both a permanent consultant and interim temporary cover” and that Cork Kerry Community Healthcare “sincerely regrets the fact that new referrals are not being accepted at the moment to the CAMHS North Lee North team”.

The statement said “despite our best efforts, we have not yet been able to recruit a consultant psychiatrist to fill a vacancy on the team”, but that intensive efforts were under way, against a backdrop of “a serious shortage of suitably qualified CAMHS consultants nationally and internationally”.

The HSE said: “We regret the disruption to this important service for young people and their families, and we continue to make every effort to fill the vacant post.”