Systemic abandonment of people with serious mental health illness is outrageous – Minister for Health must urgently address Dáil

• Beyond conscionable that the State condemns mentally ill persons to indefinite remand prison without access to appropriate medication while exporting others aboard.
• Minister for Heath must address Dáil on what is a life and death issue.
• Massive overcrowding within prison system means it is a tinderbox waiting to explode – prison service has shown itself to be devastatingly slow.

Labour Health Spokesperson Deputy Marie Sherlock has called on the Minister for Health to address the Dáil this week detailing what action this Government is taking to address system failures in acute psychiatric care services in Ireland.

Deputy Sherlock said:

“The scale of what unfolded in front of our eyes last night made for devastating viewing and huge credit is due to Conor Ryan and the RTÉ Investigates team for showing the scale of the crisis in care in Ireland.

“The programme depicted years of harrowing failure, and sustained and systemic State abandonment of mentally ill persons in this country to the prison system.

“The Minister may have inherited this problem but as a Minister over a year into the role, the buck stops with her.

“The appalling hands-off attitude of the Department of Health, the increasing reliance on a private model of mental health care that won’t accept complex cases, and a prison service that has incurred a litany of errors has led to the unholy mess and scandalous abandonment of some of our most vulnerable people.

“The State’s failure to plan has also meant it is now also spending a whopping €95m per year in treatment in the UK, up 20% from the previous year.

“Those suffering with severe psychiatric illness do not belong in prison – they belong in facilities of compassionate, comprehensive psychiatric care.

“But such is the level of disarray in serious mental health care, that the HSE has only part delivered on psychiatric assertive outreach nurses. In 2006, a Vision for Change called for at least 10-15 psychiatric assertive outreach nurses per community mental health team for those with complex needs, and yet we know from a recent parliamentary question (PQ 61113-25) that some HSE areas such as Dublin South and Wicklow, Dublin North County and Dublin North City and West, as well as IHA Waterford Wexford and IHI Carlow, Kilkenny and South Tipperary have none.

“We need to urgently hear this week from the two Cabinet Ministers – Minister Carroll MacNeill and Minister O’Callaghan – on what leadership and action are they taking on these issues. Without it, more people will continue to needlessly die in our prison systems.”