Seanad debates

Wednesday, 16 April 2003

Central Mental Hospital: Motion.

 

Of all the areas of the health service, the psychiatric services is the area which will only benefit if politicians of all parties take them very seriously because there never will be an external public lobby on the psychiatric services, for the obvious reason mentioned by Senator Bannon. If I need heart surgery and cannot get into a public hospital, I will climb up on every platform at every meeting and say that I needed surgery and could not get it. If I need admission for depression, even if I recover perfectly I will not be getting up on public platforms to say I could not get treatment for my depression because there were no beds in the psychiatric hospitals. In spite of all our rhetoric, we still do not see psychiatric illness as just another illness. In spite of all that we have learnt, there are a huge number of overtones.

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