Psychiatric units - HSE, state are failing children

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) is often perceived, and justifiably so, as more concerned with its PR image than patient care, especially regarding promises to improve aspects of the health service.

Nowhere is this more evident than the continuing failure, despite a litany of promises, to stop the unacceptable practice of placing troubled teenagers in adult psychiatric units. A Mental Health Commission report due out this week is expected to find the HSE in breach of the code of practice that allows for the placing of children in adult facilities only under “exceptional circumstances”.

The state continues to pay private residential childcare companies €14,000 a week to look after individual children while beds remain empty at HSE-run homes. Contractors are paid nearly €10,000 more per week to care for a child than it would cost in HSE facilities.