NEW REPORT SHOWS MENTAL HEALTH POLICY FAILING PATIENTS
Issued : Thursday 12 August, 2010
"A report published today by the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) shows in-patient services are heavily dependent on gardai and private security to maintain safety. It also shows massive levels of understaffing and a budget over 35% below the level recommended in the mental health strategy Vision for Change.
"The Government has committed to implementing Vision for Change but instead is trying to use it as cover for cutbacks by closing acute beds without replacement services being in place.
"This will lead to more people being refused the in-patient care they need. As the PNA report shows, some of these patients can be violent and need to be in secure units both for their own and the public’s safety. Vision for Change envisages around 750 adult acute beds to serve the entire country supported by a range of other high-support units and community settings.
"But acute beds are currently used by other types of patient including those with serious alcohol and drug addiction because the alternatives proposed by Vision for Change are not in place and will not be in place any time soon. This is the funding of alternative services is heavily dependence on the sale of State lands which will not realise their projected values due the collapse of the property market.
"Acute units throughout the country are a place of last resort for the emergency placement of people suffering a range of disturbances and mental illnesses. Yet the Government appears not to recognise that shutting acute beds without replacement services is not only bad for patients; it will increase the strain on social services and the gardai and if it continues on the current lines it will cause more harm than good for patients and the public.
"It will also mean the type of incidents that led to the intervention of riot police in an acute mental health unit occurring in the community instead."
