Seanad debates

Thursday, 7 November 2002

Report of the Inspector of Mental Hospitals, 2001: Statements.

 

We had a problem and while there is no doubt about that, we still have problems. Although there is a lot yet to be done with our psychiatric services, I am reluctant to beat too many political drums, as this issue goes deeper than politics. We can talk about cardiac services and if one calls a meeting in any town in Ireland one will have lists of people trying to get up on the platform claiming they needed cardiac surgery but could not get into hospital because there were no beds. One would find it very difficult to get one person to get up in a country town to say they suffered from serious depression and could not get into hospital because there were no beds. We still have not accepted that it is an illness and no more. It is not a genetic trait or something which reflects on a family, but it is because of that belief that we allowed so much of this neglect to happen.

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