Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The final issue is quite a sensitive one. At the committee a few months ago, I spoke about psychiatric care given to women who have postnatal depression and-or postpartum psychosis. A woman asked me to represent her case, which was a very delicate and sensitive one. I asked whether she was sure she wanted that and she said "Yes". We went through the whole thing. She watched every minute of that contribution and the ministerial response. She has since passed on. It is a very raw and sensitive case. The point I made that day, which I will reiterate, is that women who have postnatal depression or postpartum psychosis, if they present in an acute psychiatric environment, are in a ward or room system beside a whole plethora of other psychiatric cases. Having given birth to a child is quite apart from someone who may be grappling with addiction or lifelong psychiatric problems. It is quite a different thing.

The ask was that there be somewhere, be it co-located in a maternity hospital or somewhere else or some particular bespoke setting, where women who have just given birth can be reintegrated with the baby, have access to the baby and have family access without being, in this case, in a room next door to somebody who is coming off high-drug dependency. They are at totally different ends of the spectrum of mental health needs. This woman's point, which I reiterate because the poor woman is in the heavens these days, is there needs to be a more sensitive bespoke care realm for people like that. Not everyone on the psychiatric health spectrum can be in the same facility at the same time. If someone has just given birth to a child, there needs to be something bespoke on the maternity hospital campus or elsewhere. I am fighting for that woman still. I hope the Minister can. It is not a massive ask. I ask that there be some facility in different parts of the country that can sensitively care for this.