‘White coats’ media coverage is no help to patients and goes against everything we believe in
Your editorial headlined 'Mental health resources needed to fight suicide' (Irish Examiner, April 22) poses the bleak question "How many other people have similarly felt they could not get the help they desperately needed, help that could have saved their lives?"
The answer, frankly, is too many. But there are other issues to explore in fighting suicide other than issues of resources.
Yes, Government funding of our mental health services is appalling. Currently the percentage of funding to the mental health services is 6.8% of total health funding.
In 1985 it was 12%. More people die each year from suicide in Ireland than from road traffic accidents. The majority of these are young males. I'm talking about children here.
A couple of months ago I co-organised a mental health conference called 'Bridging the Gap' between primary care and mental health.
This was directed particularly at primary health care professionals in order to educate, for example, GPs (among others) in what mental health services they ought to direct their patients to if they felt a patient needed such referral.
This is the future of the mental health service working together with primary care.
Unfortunately, despite a press release sent to your newspaper and despite my speaking to staff members from your newspaper, there was not a mention of this conference.
What did make headlines was a mental health conference five days before mine which spoke about psychiatric nurses wearing white coats, injecting and restraining people.
This type of reporting is unhelpful. If the public are getting this view of our mental health services from your newspaper they will remain "the silent sufferers of mental illness". Incidentally, white coats in psychiatry are gone for a quarter of a century.
As a nation we need to take collective responsibility for this tragedy that does not appear to be going away. The public are entitled to responsible newspaper and media reporting about mental health issues and about the services that are available to them.
As mental health service professionals, we are dedicated to reducing the stigma that seems to prevent young people, especially young males, from simply talking to people about their problems.
We do not have the headlines of hospital trolleys to help our cause. But we can certainly do without negative reporting that goes against everything we believe in.
Seán Logue
6 Cleve Hill
Blackrock Road
Cork
