Psychiatric hospitals - Neglect in our name

NOW that the world has changed utterly, it is unlikely that tolerable psychiatric hospitals will be built across the country. That does not mean that they are not needed. Nor does it forgive us for tolerating conditions that were described in a 2007 report by the Irish Psychiatric Association as Dickensian, deplorable and appalling.

That report was published a full two years ago yet these terms accurately describe the living conditions of more than 1,400 people confined in old-style psychiatric hospitals this morning.

The responsible minister John Moloney has promised that two psychiatric hospitals will be closed each year under the Government’s plan to develop community mental healthcare services. The community initiatives do not provide the services needed to replace residential care and too often former hospital residents surface only when they are in trouble. We see the evidence in our courts nearly every day. People who should rightly be in the care of our health system find themselves at the mercy of our justice system. We see it too in increasing suicide numbers.

Our present circumstances offer a pathetic excuse but that does not make this neglect acceptable. In recent days we vilified a mother because she abused and neglected her children. This neglect of sick people is no better but it is carried out by the State in our name.