Dáil debates

Thursday, 26 January 2023

Interim Report on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services: Statements

 

5:14 pm

Photo of Imelda MunsterImelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State said earlier that it was important that parents are reassured that their children get the care and support they need. I start by retelling a nightmare story endured by a family over the past 11 days. It is one of hundreds of stories that have happened under the watch of the Government. It is a story about a father and his 16-year-old child. It started on Monday, 16 January when the parent received a call from the school that the child had attempted suicide by overdose. She was taken by ambulance to the accident and emergency department in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital where she was admitted for treatment and given antidote medication. That was the fourth time this child had been admitted to hospital for the same reason.

On Wednesday, 18 January, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital discharged the teenager with an appointment for CAMHS the next day, Thursday, 19 January. Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital indicated that no further treatment was needed. On the night of Wednesday, 18 January, the teenager self-harmed again. On Thursday, 19 January, at the CAMHS appointment, CAMHS advised she should be referred to a residential care facility but the doctors did not know when, where or if any place could take her. CAMHS felt that in the interim she was not safe at home and told her family to take her back to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. On Thursday, 19 January, the teenager was readmitted to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.

On Saturday, 21 January, a social worker at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital tried to get her father to take his daughter home, saying that the hospital was not the right place for her. However, her father stood his ground and stayed there until Monday, 23 January. On the morning of Monday, 23 January, the father had to take his daughter to CAMHS for an appointment, but when he collected her from Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital the hospital had discharged her and advised him not to bring her back over concerns for her safety. They attended the CAMHS appointment where her referral for residential treatment was confirmed by the doctor but with no place, no date and no time.

On Monday, 23 January, her father, petrified for his daughter's safety, took her to Tallaght hospital where there is an adult psychiatric facility. He simply could not bring her home owing to concerns over her safety. For three nights the man and his teenage daughter were left sitting on a bench without even a pillow in a glass room with people walking by and staring in. The hospital advised it did not have a psychiatric bed for her and as she is an adolescent it could not admit her or give her a bed as she is deemed psychiatric and not medical. It is not the staff's fault. They were left in a room for three days and nights. The staff in Tallaght then liaised with the psychiatric doctors and eventually the teenager was told she would be admitted to St. Joseph's Hospital.

However, that only happened because of the staying power and strength of her father and the remarkable stance he took. It only happened because he went public with a plea for help. The Michael Reade show on LMFM highlighted their plight over consecutive days with the father telling shocked and appalled listeners what their family had to endure.

Here are the facts. There are no emergency places for adolescents in crisis in emergency departments. That is the Government's policy. No psychiatric beds are readily available for adolescents in crisis. That too is the Government's policy. How many teenagers do not make it because of Government policy? Hundreds need to go through this nightmare every day. That is the Government's policy. Parents are being told there are no psychiatric beds and no beds in emergency departments. Parents are told to take their child home and they are verbally given a home safety and care package. That is the Government' policy.

If families were to sue the HSE every time a child or adult presented in a mental health emergency and were refused adequate care or admittance, would the Government be quicker to change its policies? Can we imagine a person presenting with cardiac arrest and being told they could not be admitted because the hospital had no defibrillator, no trolley and no bed? Mental health care is just as important as general or physical care. The Government has treated it as the Cinderella of our broken health system for far too long.

I listened to both Ministers' opening statements. How can they sit there and listen to these stories that are happening every day? Time and again they listen to them. It is not as if this is the first time these issues have come to light and they still do nothing when they know full well that more families today, tomorrow and the day after need to live through the nightmare I described. Why is that? It is because it is the Government's policy. At what stage will it put those wrongs to right? For goodness' sake that is its job.

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