Cautious welcome for new eating disorder treatment hubs
Minister of state with responsibility for Mental Health and Older People Mary Butler is “fully committed” to ensuring the remaining €3.94m available to the eating disorder model of care is spent “in full”. Picture: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie
The Government is to set up three new specialist eating disorder hubs in Ireland this year, after repeatedly diverting funding from its eating disorder plan.
Minister of State for mental health Mary Butler announced yesterday that €3.94m will be used this year to establish two specialist treatment hubs for adults and one hub for children and adolescents this year.
The hub for children and adolescents will be set up in the HSE's CHO 2, which covers Galway, Mayo, and Roscommon. One adult hub will be set up in CHO 4 which covers Cork and Kerry, while the remaining hub will cover CHO 8 and 9, covering north Dublin, Laois, Offaly, Longford, Westmeath, Louth, and Meath.
The National Clinical Programme for Eating Disorders published by the HSE in 2018 committed to putting in place 16 specialist hubs nationwide over five years, offering specialist multidisciplinary teams of clinicians.
To date, there are just three specialist hubs in the country, two in Dublin and one in Cork. None of the hubs are fully staffed.
Since 2016, €5.7m has been made available for eating disorder posts. Of that, just €1.77m has been invested to date in eating disorder specialist posts.
The minister of state said she is “fully committed” to ensuring the remaining €3.94m available to the eating disorder model of care is spent “in full” in 2021.
Ms Butler said the money will be used to ensure that the three existing teams are fully staffed and to establish the three new hubs. In total, 47 staff will be recruited.
CARED Ireland (a voluntary group of parents and carers of people with eating disorders) welcomed the news today, but said they were "reticent to get too enthused just yet, given the broken promises on treatment services for eating disorders to date".
In addition, the group highlighted the need to ensure staff recruited for these new and existing services are "fully equipped and trained with the skills to deal with this very complex condition, which requires multidisciplinary teams".
