Camhs patient in North Kerry 'required surgery' due to being over-medicated
HSE chief Bernard Gloster said he had spent some time recently in North Kerry, where an internal audit is continuing into over-medication, and met with people affected.
A young man over-medicated by the North Kerry child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) had to undergo surgery because of the impact on his body, the HSE boss has said.
Speaking at the Oireachtas children’s committee, Bernard Gloster said he had spent some time recently in North Kerry, where an internal audit is continuing into over-medication, and met with people affected.
“I met with a young man who was one of those over-medicated people for many years who ended up requiring surgery because of the impact on his body from that and he’s a person with autism,” Mr Gloster said.
The HSE chief executive said children requiring specialist services, whether mental health or disability, in Cork and Kerry (HSE CHO4 health region) “need a better response”.
Mr Gloster said he also visited Camhs teams in South Kerry, where the Maskey Report found that significant harm had been caused to 46 children because of over-prescribing by a junior doctor.
He said the conversations he had there were “pretty sobering” and said the local Camhs will “live under the cloud of that for some time”.
Mr Gloster, who was appointed HSE chief executive last December, was responding to questions from Labour Party TD for Cork East Seán Sherlock.
Mr Sherlock said there were 720 children in CHO4 waiting to access Camhs and that other young people were finding it “extremely difficult” to talk to local psychologists and that the situation was “extremely acute”.
Mr Gloster said he had a “huge concern” on this matter and the numbers awaiting mental health or disability services in the region was “far outstripping” other parts of the country.
Dr Amanda Burke, who was appointed last July to the new post of national Clinical lead for Camhs, said she was in Cork and Kerry last week and was examining how consistency could be brought to how the different teams worked.
Mr Sherlock said the problem was “culture and governance”.
Dr Burke said she was trying to bring in an overall clinical director model and that they were trying to fill that post.
She said they were examining “long waiters” on the list and that one initiative in Cork was an ADHD waiting list headed by a consultant.
The said the current HSE freeze on recruitment — which Mr Gloster confirmed to the committee also included Camhs — was affecting things but that this would change next year.
On a national level, Dr Burke said she intended to set up a pilot next year that would create a “single point of access”, where all referrals for Camhs and disability services would go through, and that they would be triaged by clinicians.
The pilot would start in Dublin with a second elsewhere.
Mr Gloster said that while the HSE “could open an airline” with all the pilots they had, he held high hopes for this particular one.
A number of members, including Fine Gael senator Mary Seery Kearney, raised serious concerns they had heard from parents of children with autism and mental illnesses who were being excluded from Camhs.
Dr Burke said an autism protocol was operational in six areas and would be mainstreamed next year which would ensure that Camhs services were provided in “conjunction” with community disability services.
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