Seanad debates

Thursday, 24 November 2016

Mental Health Services Funding: Statements

 

10:30 am

Photo of Lynn RuaneLynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am out of breath after running here from a committee room, which must be a sign that I am not looking after myself very well. I will talk about some of the lived realities on the ground and how the task force and the Minister of State's work can reach the target groups. Last week, I gave a talk at Alexandra College in Dublin 6. The speaker before me gave an amazing speech and spoke about where in the world her friends were. When my turn came to speak, all I could think of was where my friends were and why I was not able to give the same speech. During the past six months since I was elected, I have lost four people to suicide. The only difference between me and the other speaker was inequality. How are we making the connection between inequality and access to services and help?

Although services exist in communities, there is a lack of cohesiveness between some of the services and the community members. When services were first set up a long time ago, the community people had demanded them, especially regarding addiction. There was upward pressure. Are we missing some sort of link between the services and the community, especially for young men in disadvantaged areas who will struggle to even know how to access services and where to go? This is one of the reasons I am holding the Tallaght Talks next week. It is to try to start the conversation with young men. Some 250 people from west Tallaght are attending it and we have got local faces such as Al Porter and Paddy Holohan, the mixed martial arts, MMA, fighter, to try to act as ambassadors for the services that exist so we can shine a light on them. Although we have plenty of services in Tallaght, such as Pieta and Jigsaw, young men and women in the area cannot name a single service. While the may know Pieta exists as a national organisation, they might not know how to access it in their own locality.

How can the task force begin to address this? While it is a community-led task force in the voluntary sector, it seems to include people who are actively involved in working in mental health in those sectors. Is there a space to develop some sort of task force that could feed the position on the ground into the main task force maybe two to four times per year so it can become more cohesive and the message can filter down to the ground to the people who need it most? In more affluent areas, people have much more social and cultural capital and they know who to ask for help. They might have people in their families who work in specific mental health areas. People from the poorest backgrounds do not have that. They do not have family members who are counsellors, psychiatrists or lecturers who can signpost the way. Is there an element of the Minister of State's work that seeks to address the people at the very bottom?

I include those with dual diagnosis, especially in the homeless sector. As someone who has worked in the homeless sector for so long, it is very difficult to see people turned out of accident and emergency departments and sent back to the street with no co-operation between the health service and the addiction service on devising an dual approach to addiction and mental health in order to avoid people being knocked from one door to another. Our streets have become our asylums. We stopped institutional care of people who are mentally unwell. They are on the streets and in the hostels, where they are not receiving the care they need. Is there something we can do to put more resources into the homeless service and addressing mental health on the street? I met a man in a homeless hostel who had slit his throat and I had to stem the blood. I could not get him sectioned. He had cut his throat wide open and I begged to have him sectioned for his own safety, but I could not do it. Normal project workers with no background in mental health are trying to fire fight all these situations. Is the Minister of State considering those who are hardest for mental health services to reach?

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