HSE incompetence - Heads must start rolling

The inefficiencies and incompetence of the HSE seem to know no bounds. Despite a promise of 16 fully functioning child and adolescent community mental health teams for 2007 and 2008, only three have been provided.

The mental health plan of 2001 concluded that “urgent attention” should be given to the completion of four 20-bed units in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin. The total compliment for the country is now 22 beds – 12 in Dublin and 10 in Galway.

As a result young people are being put into adult units. In 2007 there were about 3,600 children and adolescents on waiting lists, and at least a third of those had been waiting for over a year.

Funding was provided for 35 additional therapy posts in the emergency budget last April, but the recruitment process is only now “commencing”, according to the HSE. A new eight-bed unit has been ready in Cork for several months, but it has remained closed because the staff was not appointed to operate it. This is an outrage.

Somebody must be held responsible for such gross incompetence. Heads should roll.