Eating disorders: 50 patients on waiting list for treatment at new centre

Minister with Responsibility for Mental Health, Mary Butler, has said that €1.5m was ringfenced in the 2022 budget for the national clinical programme for eating disorders.

A centre for eating disorders which opened a year ago has just taken in its first six in-patients. Another 50 patients are also on a waiting list for treatment.

The National Eating Disorder Recovery Centre in Ballsbridge in Dublin had been lying idle since last April until the first tranche of in-patients began treatment at the facility two weeks ago.

The centre’s director Carla Johnston said that there are six people currently in the centre for residential treatment. However, she said that approval has been granted by the Mental Health Commission to increase capacity shortly to eight beds.

And she said: “We have a waiting list of about 50 people who are waiting to get treated here.” 

She said that those currently in treatment and those on the waiting list all have health insurance to cover their treatment.

The in-patient facility was lying idle until March 21 because the health insurance companies had not yet come on board, while public patients wishing to be treated there could not get funding from the HSE.

No public patients are currently being treated at the centre. Ms Johnston said that despite public patients wishing to avail of the new centre, they cannot get treatment there because they cannot get covered by the HSE.

Currently, there are just three inpatient public beds available in Ireland, in St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. However, they are only available to people in the catchment area of Dublin South East, Dublin South and Co Wicklow.

Hospital admissions for eating disorders among children and adolescents rose by 66% in 2020 compared to 2019.

According to the HSE, decisions on funding for private facilities are made according to individual clinical need, as assessed by the person’s individual local mental health team and the prioritisation of available funding.

And the organisation says: “Applications for funding for treatment of eating disorders with private providers can be made by community healthcare organisations on a case-by-case basis.” 

Recently, the Minister with Responsibility for Mental Health, Mary Butler, said that €1.5m was ringfenced in the 2022 budget for the national clinical programme for eating disorders.

She said the figure would provide for provision of three full-time additional eating disorder teams and two additional partial teams, resulting in nine full teams and two partial teams by the end of the year. She said that this would result in all nine community healthcare organisations in the State having one eating disorder team.

Support and helplines:

• Bodywhys Helpline: 01 210 7906 Bodywhys email support service: [e-mail] 
• HSE eating disorder self-care app: In March 2019 the HSE has launched the first self-care app which provides valuable information for those with or people caring for someone with an eating disorder.