Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise the issue of out-of-hours mental health services in the north west, particularly Sligo. The Minister of State will read a response and tell me there are out-of-hours services in place, junior doctors on call and a junior doctor on back-up call. However, the experience of people in the region, particularly counties Sligo and Leitrim, is very different. I give the example of a constituent of mine who contacted me about his son, a young man who has been using a mental health service for a considerable period. As a result of abuse suffered in his youth, this young man has had mental health episodes for many years and has been in and out of hospital on numerous occasions.

His family was a great support to him and was working with him and trying to help him but they were advised by the mental health service to back up a little as it was not good. They were told the mental health service would put a team around him to help him, a social worker would be put in place, which there was, and the primary care unit near his town would come into play and help look after him. The social worker retired and was not replaced. The primary care unit that was supposed to provide mental health services is very ad hocand on numerous occasions when the man phoned nobody answered and he did not get a call back. On a couple of occasions, his father has helped him, spoken to him about it and gone with him to the mental health services. When a meltdown happens this person is inclined to self-harm, wrecks his whole house and lashes out at everybody around him. He is a danger to himself and others. The service providers told him that if ever he sees a meltdown coming on, he should go to them, that the door would be opened and they would take him in and look after him. He did so less than a week ago but when he arrived at St. Columba's out-of-hours there was nobody there. He sat for two and a half hours before he saw a junior consultant, who spoke to him for approximately half an hour and then told him he was okay to go home. He felt let down by the service and went home as distressed as he was when he arrived. A couple of days later he phoned gardaí and asked them to come and take him away or he would do something terrible. The gardaí had to bring him back into the services. This is one case but there are numerous others, sometimes involving young adolescents and children. They find there are huge holes in the service.

With regard to primary care, there is supposed to be a community service for mental health patients. However, that community service is effectively vacant when people look for it, certainly in the Sligo and Leitrim region. When people arrive out-of-hours at St. Columba's in Sligo nobody is there to help. This is a reality for many people. While there may be a junior consultant on call, that same person is also on call in Sligo University Hospital up the road and may be dealing with people there and not able to leave. I want the Minister of State to find out about this. When this happens there is supposed to be a back-up junior registrar on call. How often has that person been called in? I have been told that person has never been called in. People have waited for hours with nobody to see them in very distressing and disturbing circumstances. This is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. If people are continually turned away from the service, the next time we speak will be to discuss a tragedy after someone has been turned away from the service. We do not want this to happen. I certainly do not want it and the Minister of State and the Government, who are responsible for the situation, certainly do not want it.

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