Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No. With respect, if a 14 year old were to present with psychosis, the care provision for them, because of a vacuum surrounding recruitment, should not be a screen. As Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, Deputy Daly's priority should be ensuring the Department fills the recruitment gaps in our hospital system and that we do not replace or dilute proper care provision in our acute hospital system. He mentions not having to have a consultant on site 24-7. They are not there anyway, but we should not dilute proper care provision and proper appointments for something that is not the same. No matter what, face-to-face will beat telemedicine.

We should not have a policy of diluting the quality of care. If one were to ask any 14 year old, he or she would prefer for there to be a team to assess him or her when he or she presents on an acute basis than to be handed a video screen or something like that. While it is fine to develop a process of telemedicine, it is important we do not replace a proper recruitment provision in our acute hospital system. Currently, many children who present at hospitals at, say, 2 a.m. must be admitted to adult beds and they are not seen by paediatric psychiatrists. We should not encourage child and adolescent psychiatrists to work for six hospitals. Rather, we should fill the recruitment gab. It is a failure of Government policy on recruitment, retention and pay. I would not like to see dilution and gaps in recruitment. While it is fine to develop something different, it should not replace proper, direct care, that is, seeing the doctor at the hospital interface.