Mental health funding is a national disgrace

FOLLOWING your front page report and editorial comment in relation to the alarming levels of suicide in Ireland (April 29), it is interesting to note that in the current year only 5.4% of the total health budget will be spent on mental health services nationally.

This compares with a figure of more than 8% of the total health budget spent on mental health services in the 1980s.

The mental health services are moving further down the pecking order in relation to funding. The WHO has recommended that a minimum of 12% of national health budgets be spent on mental health services. In the Government’s own document, Vision for Change, it recommends a minimum of 8.5% of the total health budget be spent on mental health.

Set against these figures, high suicide levels are not just a “national disaster” but rather a predictable direct consequence of the neglect and underfunding of the mental health services and should therefore be described more accurately as a “national disgrace”.

Cormac Williams

Branch Organiser

Psychiatric Nurses Association

Kerry