Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I could do a lot of damage in six minutes. I will set into it. I must agree entirely with the comments of our witnesses on the general availability of mental health services at present. As Deputies, we all deal with many cases of parents with children who have mental health problems and attempting to gain access for treatment in a hospital or sometimes even to an accident and emergency department is nearly impossible. There seems to be a lack of awareness of the seriousness of the problem as it affects mental health patients. There does not seem to be an alertness to the fact that if the issue is not dealt with in the early days it can get dramatically worse in a very short time. That also applies to adult patients. We have all dealt with, and continue to deal with, cases, for example, where a patient is not co-operative, is suicidal and does not want to be helped in any way but a way must be found to encourage the patient and to deal with the situation. A patient cannot be allowed to float in the wilderness with no assistance, no place to go and nobody to reach out to.

The number of cases where a patient is discharged prematurely, sometimes in the middle of the night, with no place to go, is alarming and appalling. That practice did not start recently. It started about 20 years ago.

The decongregation of mental hospitals was never probably planned, funded or implemented. It still is not. As long as it goes on, we will have major deficiencies. We will have breakdowns in the system. For example, a situation occurred not so long ago where a juvenile patient, who was severely affected, injured himself to the extent that he needed hospital treatment. He was brought to an accident and emergency department and waited all day and all night there. What in God’s name has gone wrong with the system? The parents and the families are very frustrated. Only for the families that follow up and the mothers, fathers or family members who stay in hospitals overnight continuously to insist on treatment for their child or sibling, the whole system would break down.

There is a necessity to identify the basics that have to be put in place as a matter of urgency. Whatever it takes to fund that, we have to do it. We are obliged as a society to respond to the health and all the other needs of our society, but we need to deal with this issue as a matter of urgency. We have all dealt with extreme cases where we believe something should have been done and ask why it was not done and who is to blame. The blame game is no good to patients who have injured or harmed themselves. The necessary service needs to be put in place. Whatever funding that requires must go with it. If we do not do it now, it will get dramatically worse. It impacts on all of us if we do not take the necessary action.

I do not want to go on about it. Most of what I want to say I have said many times previously. I know what the witnesses are saying. They will get a good hearing here. I am not saying anything by way of criticism. This is a fundamental issue and the Department of Health and all involved must examine the seriousness of the situation and deal with it as a matter of urgency.