Mental health services - A vision for unhealthy obfuscation

The Irish Psychiatric Association (IPA) and the Irish Mental Health Coalition (IMHC) issued what amounted to damning progress reports yesterday to mark the second anniversary of the publication of A Vision for Change, the Government’s framework document for mental health.

Both associations have essentially accused the Health Service Executive (HSE) of “misappropriating” funds earmarked for mental health services. In its report, Lie of the Land, a title that was obviously intended as a pun, the IPA accuses the Government and the HSE of systematically allowing large amounts of property that were attached to mental hospitals to be frittered away.

The money realised from the sale of those assets was supposed to be reinvested in psychiatric services, in accordance with A Vision for Change, launched with such great fanfare in 2006. The document set out in unambiguous terms that the lands associated with the large and sprawling mental institutions were remnants of the past.

They were evidence of outdated thinking.

Much of the excess property has been sold off at a time when property prices were particularly high, but the money has not been reinvested in mental health services. Instead, it has been diverted elsewhere.

Many mental health professionals contributed to A Vision for Change, and they are naturally very disappointed at the lack of progress. It amounts to another shameless betrayal by the Government.

Plans for a psychiatric wing of Beaumont Hospital have actually been replaced with plans for one of the private co-located hospitals. The IMHC was understandably scathing about the HSE’s failure to implement A Vision for Change. Admittedly the plan was to be implemented over a seven-year period, but there is no evidence of any progress after two years. In fact, the HSE has not even come forward with a plan to implement the framework outlined.

A mother told RTÉ news yesterday that her teenage son, who suffers from schizophrenia, has to spend nights in a geriatric ward. This is evidence of the poor services for adolescents.

Schizophrenia Ireland has accused the health authorities of effectively sitting on their hands for the past two years. The mental health services are still outdated, fragmented and severely under-resourced.

The IMHC accused the HSE of falling down in relation to funding. A Vision for Change called for €25 million annually for mental health services. The money was allocated for each of the past two years, but only €23m of the combined €50m was actually spent on those services.

More than half was diverted into other health services by the HSE to shore up its budgetary deficiencies elsewhere.

A spokesman for the HSE explained yesterday that the other money was “time delayed to address core deficits in existing mental health services”. Yeah! In the progress report on the implementation of A Vision for Change, it is clear that the HSE has been failing dismally. Its performance could be summed up as: Nothing done with a lot to do.

The Vision for Change has been lost in a fog of government and HSE obfuscation.